Losing 50 kilos

I read an article recently in a magazine telling a story about a woman in her early thirties who managed to lose 61 kilos in two years. She had been fat her whole life – weighing already 24 kilos when she was just a two-year-old, and 67 kilos when she was 11. At her heaviest she was 128 kg, being only 166 cm tall. When I looked at the ‘before’ picture of her, it was like looking a whole different person. The ‘old’ her had triple chin and her clothes looked big enough to house a half of an army platoon inside them. The ‘new’ me was a beautiful woman who looked happy with herself.

One thing that caught my attention was that she mentioned using NLP (neuro-lingvistic programming) as a psychological aid in her weight loss. Many diet guides tell you to “think yourself slim” but as she had never been normal-weight in her whole life, she had no encouraging memories to return to. She had to imagine herself as a normal-weight person and discover her true personality under all those layers of fat – what she’d wear, how she’d act, what kind of things she’d be doing when finally in her normal weight. She had cut and pasted her face into some pictures where the person had a body she liked, and then attached those pictures to her fridge, bathroom mirror and all kind of places where she would catch a glimpse of them. That, she said, helped her to keep in focus of her future “slim me”.

I started doing that too – always when going to sleep, I like to imagine myself in the life I’d be living when I’m finally normal-weight. Being normal-weight won’t make me instantly rich or famous – that I did accept already before. But being able to wear clothes that I want and being healthy – those are something that getting normal-weight is worth the effort.

My favorite NLP visualization is though this – I’m standing on a beach, it’s windy and I’m building a sand castle with my future children. I have twins, girl and boy, they’re about three years old and both have light, curly, sandy-colored hair. The boy sees a pelican further on the beach and waddles after it, quite fast as three-year-olds can go. I run after him, and I can feel the wet, soft sand underneath my bare feet, and how light my stride is when I run and catch him before he decides to wander to the sea. I carry him back, and he feels light as a feather, because I’m strong enough to hold him on my arms, thanks to regular gym exercise. My husband returns, bringing ice cream to the kids, and while they’re eating and messing their clothes with it, he grabs me to embrace and flings me around in the air. I feel light and I’m not afraid that my husband’s back would break from lifting me up. He kisses me, tells me that he loves me and that this day, spending time with his family, is the best thing that has happened to him.

I’m not normal-weight yeat; I don’t have kids and a husband either. The day I finally have them, I want to feel like that.