What Do You Deserve?

I have recently experienced a huge set-back. I say recently, but in reality it’s been happening for over six months. In September of 2018 I hit a milestone – I lost 80 pounds! I’ve never lost that much weight before!

I looked at the number on the scale, hardly able to believe what it meant. Losing 80 pounds was more than halfway to my goal. My clothes were much looser and I was in need of buying smaller clothes, so it really shouldn’t have surprised me to see the number going down.

And in reality, I don’t know that it was the number itself that surprised me – it was my reaction to that number that surprised me. I remember feeling disbelief, then fear, then disappointment. It struck me that I should be over-the-moon happy with my weight being down, but I wasn’t. I got a little angry at myself, “Micah! Look at what you’ve accomplished! Why aren’t you happy about this?! Isn’t this what you’ve wanted your whole life? Well, it’s finally happening!! Why aren’t you happy or excited?”

First, my disbelief. The fact that I “couldn’t believe” I had lost 80 pounds means that I didn’t really believe that I would. How else do you explain being “surprised” by weightloss when weightloss IS THE GOAL?! Deep down, I never really believed that I could be successful at losing weight because I had tried SO MANY times before. Suddenly, this time was different. Something about this process had worked and I wasn’t ready for it. I was seeing it, but I wasn’t believing it. In that moment, I realized that something within me was out of alignment with my goals and how I saw myself (more on this below).

Second, my fear. This is convoluted, even to me. I was afraid of so many things. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to maintain that weightloss. I was afraid that if I didn’t maintain that level of weightloss that people would make fun of me or worse, look at me with that crushing pity or disappointment in their eyes. Suddenly I felt “pressure” to HAVE to keep the weight off and I was afraid that I couldn’t do it – I mean, I wasn’t even able to believe I had done it in the first place, so how could I maintain it? I was afraid that it would make some people feel bad about themselves. (I know, I said this was convoluted… which is just a fancy way of saying my thought process is SO F’d up!!) I was afraid that, rather than be happy for me, it might make others who are also trying to lose weight, feel bad that they haven’t lost weight or haven’t lost as much weight. I was afraid that if I shared my progress, people would think I was showing off or trying to be something I’m not (what does that even mean?! I have no idea!!).

Part of the fear was not purely my own though. I recall telling someone that I had lost 80 pounds, but still have “more to go” and their response was, “but is that realistic?” The moment they said it, my soul was crushed. Basically they were saying, “hey, you’ve lost this weight, maybe you should just be happy with that and stop trying to lose more. That way you won’t set yourself up for disappointment when you don’t lose any more weight.” I know the comment was well-meaning – they just wanted me to be happy, but it confirmed to me that other people don’t believe in me; don’t believe that I could lose any more weight and that I ought to just be happy with what I had achieved, or be happy at being slightly less fat than when I started, or just “accept” myself the way I am and stop trying to improve myself. Suddenly, I had confirmation that I should be afraid of not being able to lose more weight, because others didn’t believe I could either. Which is probably what contributed to…

Third, my disappointment. My original goal was to lose 140 pounds. Losing 80 pounds, as I said, is over halfway, but because it wasn’t 140 pounds, I hadn’t “met my goal.” Why be happy about losing 80 pounds, when I still have 60 more pounds to go? Losing 80 pounds was great, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t be happy about losing 80 pounds because I told myself (unknowingly), that I wouldn’t be happy until I reached 140 pounds lost. It’s all or nothing and I won’t be happy until ALL the weight is gone.  The problem with saying, “I’ll be happy when…” is that you’re also saying, “I CAN’T be happy until…” Here I was, 80 pounds lost, AND I STILL WASN’T HAPPY. I was disappointed that I had ONLY lost 80 pounds and not 140. 

Somehow, of all of the three feelings mentioned above, it was feeling disappointment that was most eye opening. The fact that I had achieved something I had never before achieved – and still wasn’t happy about it, made me realize just how bad my mindset has been. Even as I have gone through the grueling process of trying to change my outlook on life, I still had this deep, deep belief that I could only be happy in one way – at my ideal weight.

But since I had “failed” to reach that weight, I gave in to my disbelief, my fear, and my disappointment. It’s interesting – I didn’t stop going to the gym and I didn’t stop trying to eat clean, in fact, I went through a nutrition certification course so that I could coach others on optimal eating habits. But what did change, was that I stopped really believing that I could do this – that I could maintain 80 pounds lost, that I could lose an additional 60 pounds, that I could actually achieve my goal weight. What has been the result? Well, here I am 6-7 months later and I’ve regained 40 of the 80 pounds lost!!

This is devastating to me.

I feel so disappointed in myself. I feel like a fraud for wanting to help other people eat well and lose weight, when I can’t even seem to do that for myself!

I’ve been asking myself for weeks/months, “what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get my act together? Why do I keep messing up, failing, and hurting myself – mentally and nutritionally?”

It finally dawned on me one day with alarming clarity: I just don’t deserve it.

When this thought came to the surface, I realized how much it felt like “me.” This is my identity; this is who I am – a man who is undeserving of anything good in his life. I don’t know why I haven’t realized it until now. How could I not have seen it until now? But now that I do, I look back over my life and I realize that it has been there the whole time. This belief has been with me for as long as I can remember, influencing every moment of my life, every choice I’ve made, every circumstance I have found myself in. Maybe I couldn’t see it because it was so good a hiding or masquerading as something else – such as being a victim, not measuring up, being afraid, etc. Being undeserving has been a part of all of those things, like an undercurrent that can’t be seen, but influences everything above it.

I have ruined diets, binged, and given up on myself over and over again, because I didn’t believe that I deserved anything better. If I did feel like I deserved something, it was that I deserved punishment, pain, and suffering. No wonder being miserable “feels right,” it’s all I’ve felt I’ve deserved. I deserve to be fat, ugly and lonely because I don’t deserve to be healthy, attractive or in a relationship. I don’t deserve to lose more weight, because that would make me happy and I don’t deserve to be happy!

Being undeserving can – and has – cut through every facet of my life. I think this is why I felt “disbelief” at having lost 80 pounds, as I mentioned above; as well as why I felt fear about losing weight – because I had achieved something I didn’t “deserve.”

For as long as I can remember I’ve had this really weird belief system that goes something like this: If I deserved to have something in my life, then I would have it; if I don’t have something in my life, it’s because I don’t deserve it. A couple of examples of this are: If I was deserving of having a good body, then I would have one (and not have to work for it?); but since I don’t have a good body, I don’t deserve it. Or, on the negative side: Since I was molested as a child, I must have deserved it, because if I didn’t deserve it, it wouldn’t have happened…

It’s as if the condition of having or not having something in my life is somehow “irrefutable proof” of this Deserving rule. Honestly, I have no idea where, when or how this rule developed, but I obviously felt it was so reliable that it just became a part of me.

Which leads me to my next question: now what?

Now that I see what I’ve been doing consciously or unconsciously my whole life, what do I do about it now? How do I just flip the switch and say, “ohp, gosh, you know what? wait…, wait, wait… I guess I was wrong this whole time; I really am deserving of having good things and being successful…!”

Like, I can’t do this. I can’t just wake up tomorrow and suddenly believe that I’m deserving of all good things – it’s far too incongruous with my experience. How do I lie to myself and tell myself that I suddenly deserve all the things I’ve told myself my whole life I DON’T deserve?

On the other hand I have this little “mindset coach” in the back of my head asking, “why does being deserving even have to factor into the equation? Why does everything have to be related to whether or not you deserve it? What if you took ‘being deserving’ out of the equation, period?”

Those are good questions, but I don’t know what that would look like. I don’t know how to answer those questions. Perhaps, instead of looking like “what do you deserve?” it might look like “what are you willing to work for?” Because if it’s no longer a matter of what you deserve, then it must become a matter of what do you really want and are you willing to DO what it takes to achieve it?

I don’t know. I’m really at a loss here. Has anyone else gone through this? What advice would you give me?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? Or have you ever wondered...

What do you deserve?

My dirty little secret…

I’ve been debating for a long time whether or not to share my dirty little secret. I hid this part of me for most of my life, but I’ve felt the need to come clean. Perhaps it’s just the timing of the new year – with constant talk about goals and resolutions, with looking back and looking forward, etc. The last year has been filled with so many changes, and more than its share of challenges, that it’s hard to fathom what this year may bring. One thing I do know – I don’t want to spend another year hiding. So what am I hiding? What’s my dirty little secret…?

I want to lose weight.

That’s it. That’s my dirty little secret. Not what you were expecting me to say? Is that a bit of a let down? It may not seem like such a profound announcement, but in its way, that is one of the hardest things I’ve ever put in writing. Let me explain.

It’s true that I have been overweight most of my life. I can’t recall a time when I was thin, at any rate. I was teased and made fun of; I was looked down on and ridiculed. I was betrayed and hurt by friends and family. I learned at a very young age, that being fat (“different”) was bad and that I was worth less than those who were thin and attractive. I literally didn’t fit in, and the world let me know in so many ways. Under those circumstances, it would be perfectly logical for me to want to lose weight, right? So that I could fit in and feel normal.

On the surface, it wasn’t unusual for me to admit that I was on a diet. I would often remark that I knew I needed to exercise more, or be more active (sometimes I actually tried!). But all of these things were superficial and, ultimately, to please others. I knew what I SHOULD say/do – because being fat is bad/unacceptable and I SHOULD do all I can to lose weight. But deep down, I felt so bad about myself, that I secretly believed I deserved to be fat and all the bad things that went with it. So, publicly, I kept up the façade. Privately, I was dying of desperation. It is a nightmarish reality to live a life wanting something that is ultimately good, but denying yourself because you think you don’t deserve it.

I guess what it boils down to is that I’ve been too embarrassed to admit that I want to lose weight, because I’m so ashamed of being overweight. Admitting that I desperately want to lose weight is admitting how unhappy I am this way; how unhappy I’ve been for a long time. Making the admission public is also passing a point of no return. If I say this out loud, that “I want to lose weight,” then there’s no going back. People are going to ask, “how’s it going with the weight loss thing?” They’re going to EXPECT me to lose weight and what happens if I don’t? What happens if I fail miserably and don’t lose any weight? Then every time someone asks me about it, I’m going to feel like a failure. I’m only going to be reminded of how disappointed I am in myself; especially how disappointed I am in myself for making poor lifestyle choices that keep me overweight.

People are going to look down on me and I’m going to hear that little voice in the back of my head that says, “see, I knew you couldn’t do it.” Then I’m just going to go on being ashamed and disappointed. Then there’s the condescending voice that says “oh, you want to lose weight? Yeah, good luck with that. You could work out for 8 hours a day and it still wouldn’t make a dent, but if you want to put in your 30 minutes of walking, you go right ahead. Just don’t be surprised when nothing happens because it’s not nearly going to be enough…” and so on. And I haven’t really even addressed shame yet! I’m ashamed of wanting to do something selfish. I’m ashamed of putting myself first. I’m ashamed of taking care of myself physically because I think anything physical is temporary and not what the Lord wants me to focus on. (Can someone help me out with making sense of “self-care vs. putting God first,” because this is still a hard one for me?) Another barrier was the feeling that I HAD to lose weight just to be acceptable or to have any worth. Which I know now is a lie, but for most of my life, this was true. The popular kids were thin and athletic. The people who got invited to parties and had tons of friends were thin and attractive.

With all those negative connotations, is it any wonder that I haven’t wanted to verbalize just how much I want to lose weight?  (If you can relate to any of this, then maybe you can see why it was so hard for me to openly admit that I want to lose weight.)

Maybe this year isn’t really about weight loss, so much as being honest with myself.  Maybe the thing I want from 2014 is to stop living according to what I think other people think I should do or want. Or maybe it’s about finally having the humility (courage?) to admit that I need help and to actually reach out and ask for it. (I know it’s a guy thing, but asking for help is quite possibly the hardest thing for me to do…) Asking for help feels the same as admitting defeat. It’s like saying, “yep, I failed… again. I wasn’t good enough… again.” I guess that’s just pride/self-pity talking.

So I want to lose weight. And not because I think it’s what fat people are supposed to want, but because I want it for myself. I’m tired of feeling bad about myself all the time. I’m tired of daily discouragement and disappointment. I’m tired of being uncomfortable in my skin (not to mention clothing!).

Lastly, I want to apologize to all the people I COULD have asked for help. I realize that many friends I’ve had would have been more than willing to help, should I have asked for it. And to those people I say, “thanks. I’m sorry I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to ask for your help – I was too embarrassed and ashamed of myself.  I also hope that if someone else comes to you and asks for help that you take a minute to recognize and congratulate that person on having the courage to ask for help, because it’s not an easy thing for some of us to do. (And I hope that you feel flattered that they look up to you enough to even want to ask you for your help.)”

Even though I feel like it ripped my heart out, I feel better getting that off my chest. I really am looking forward to 2014. I have a lot of hope for this year (regardless of how much weight I lose!).