MATTHEW McNUTT

I saw the above on Postsecret the other week, a website where people anonymously send in their secrets on postcards they make.  I immediately idenitified with it, which caught me a little off guard.  Here’s the thing – self perception can take a long time to catch up to reality, in other words, even when I was thirty pounds underweight, trying to win the money on Biggest Loser, I actually still thought I looked fat.  On the day of the finale there was a part of me actually afraid to go out on the stage and in front of the cameras because I was worried that people would talk about how I still looked overweight or should have done better.  Seriously.  I look at pictures of myself now from the finale and I’m a little startled at just how thin I was – I was starting to look gaunt!  When I asked the psychologist about this, because it was really freaking me out that I still felt so fat when the doctors were actually telling me to put on weight she explained that it can sometimes take years for our self perception to catch up to our reality.  When we spend so long thinking of ourselves one way, it’s hard to envision ourselves as something different!

I actually think this is part of the reason why so many people put the weight back on.  I don’t know how many times I’ve sat and struggled with a feeling of hopelessness about my weight … and that’s after I lost it!  In those moments, those same thoughts of giving up and just eating whatever since it’s all hopeless anyway flood my mind.  It could be very easy to become what I perceive myself to be in those times.

So how do we overcome the mindgames?  I’m not entirely sure.  I know that time helps – I’m comfortable with my body and myself now when I’m at my appropriate weight of 230 lbs.  It took me a while to get to that point – for the longest time I was terrified to admit to anyone that I weighed anything over the dehydrated 190 lbs I weighed in at the finale.  The psychologist told me that it usually takes seven times as long as the time of change for the brain to catch up to the change – for me that would be the six months it took to get to my goal weight, so about three and a half years.  Then again, it’s only been a year and a half and I’m already a lot healthier about my body image.  Another thing she suggested was putting thin photos of myself up around the house and even at my office.  Her point?  How often do I actually see myself in a day?  A few seconds in the morning when I’m combing my hair, the rest of the time I don’t get that visual reminder of what my body actually looks like and it’s easy to default to old memories.  And the reality is, while I’m a lot more used to my thin photos then I used to be, I’m still startled by them from time to time.

All this to say, it’s not unusual to feel fat after losing the weight.  I’ve had this conversation with quite a few fellow contestants and other friends who lost significant weight and were mystified when people told them they were where they needed to be when they still felt fat.  Sometimes we need to trust our friends more than our own self perception – my mind has played enough games with my self image over the years!

Anyway, just some random thoughts that spilled out because of a Postsecret card.