Yesterday, I was reading an article about Fat Talk. Essentially, fat talk is when a woman talks negatively about her body, about how fat she perceives herself to be. According to the article, 93% of women engage in fat talk and a good number of women who engage in fat talk are actually not fat at all but are of a healthy and normal weight.

I'm not going to discuss this article. I linked to it above so go read it. I think it's an important issue to discuss and perhaps at another point in time, I may bring this up again.

What I want to talk about is how easily we believe things we tell ourselves that we know, deep down inside, or should know deep down inside, is not true.

It's interesting and scary to think how easily we convince ourselves of things that are not true: we think we're fat, we think we're ugly, we think that we're useless or pointless or not important.

Sometimes, we even tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do about it. We tell ourselves we are helpless to do anything about this.

I have found myself engaging in this type of helpless behavior. As I have mentioned previously, I struggle with my weight and have been trying for years to do something about it. But I always fail and I always fall off the wagon and pack weight back on until I'm miserably uncomfortable in my own body and then I start all over again.


After that previous post I wrote regarding making yourself proud, I stopped to evaluate myself. It's taken the last several weeks to realize something vitally important: I have become a victim of my own negative thoughts.

Let me be crystal clear for a moment: my self-worth is not wrapped up in my body. I am easily 40 lbs over my ideal weight. I admit that I frequently tell myself that I'm ridiculously overweight and that I don't look as good as I should, and sometimes I have days where I really feel bad about myself because I'm 43 years old and 40 lbs overweight and oh my god! I'm just a fat, old, ridiculous woman.


It's been a struggle to find my self-worth, to not wrap my identity in my weight or my lack of talents or anything like that. I am who I am and whether I'm 40 lbs overweight or 20 lbs underweight, I am me and I'm worthy of friendship, I'm worthy of love. I'm a good person who is smart enough, fun enough, and good enough, gosh darn it!

But I have allowed myself to be victimized by my own thoughts. I tell myself that I am trying really hard to lose weight. I tell myself that I'm doing the best I can but it's just not working!!!! I have convinced myself that my body will never change no matter what I do.

And then, as I thought about making myself proud and how that affects what I'm doing every day, I had to ask myself, "Am I really trying my hardest? Am I really doing everything I can? Am I giving it my all? My best?"

Yes, I'm eating better than I have probably in my entire life.

Yes, I exercise regularly and probably more often than I have in my entire life.

But am I really doing my best? Is eating two pieces of gooey butter cake really doing my best?

The answer is a resounding, "No!" I am not doing my best. I'm doing better but I'm not doing my best.

And really? I don't want to be one of those stick-skinny women who wears a size 2 and who has six-pack abs. In fact, I'd be pretty content to drop another 20 lbs and be a size 10.

What I want is to gain control of myself. I want to gain control of my mind. I want to stop believing things about myself that aren't true.


What my brain tells me I am in my bleakest hours is not who I am. And I need to quit believing it when it tells me negative things.

There's a group of women, the Tri Delta sorority at Northwestern University, who started the national campaign for Fat Talk Free Week. They want to change the conversation. I want to change the conversation.

You should, too.