Body Image: Our Lying Minds

It's hard enough to change yourself for the better.

Losing weight, muscling up, getting your cardio in the pink; all these things take the kinds of focus and persistence few of us are capable of scraping together for longer than a weekend.

So, it doesn't help that our Minds conspire against us, by lying to us through our own teeth.  It does this through something called 'Body Image'.

One of the most extreme examples of the mind playing tricks with Body Image is, of course, the medical syndrome called anorexia.  That's when people stop eating and become mere skeletal shadows of their formerly healthy selves, all the while still seeing themselves as overweight.  Their skewed Body Image tells them they are fat when they are on death's door from starvation. 

More common, and less immediately dangerous, is the flip side of anorexia; being overweight yet having your mind signal you are skinny as a rail, starving, and about to slip out of your clothes and slide down a crack in the floor.

This happens at the most inopportune times, like when you are trying to stick to a diet.  Sadly it never seems to happen when it might be useful; for example, when you will be the center of attention at an event and could use a morale boost.  Feeling skinnier than you are at those times would be nice, but no, your mind saves it up and lets loose when you need it least.

For many reasons, mostly vain and of no particular importance to anyone other than me, I decided to drop a few pounds this year.  These are pounds I spent a good deal of the past 4 years packing on, so deciding to shed such hard-won fat was not done lightly.  

With gritty resolve I began the task and was immediately rewarded with success.  And my Mind rebelled...

Unless I looked in a full-length mirror while standing naked on a groaning scale, I couldn't shake the certainty that I was fading away into nothingness; that I was starving myself.  My Mind kept telling me, "You look good enough; feel how loose your pants are, how baggy that shirt.  Enough is Enough.  Go eat a Pizza."

So far I've been able to resist these false advisements, but it hasn't been easy.  The vast difference between how blubbery I really am and how trim my Mind says I am, is a constant challenge to that aforementioned focus and persistence. 

(Side Note:  it was my mind that made me use the words 'advisements' and  'aforementioned' - see what I'm up against?)