I’m noticing something but not sure I fully understand it enough to articulate it well, but I’ll give it a shot! Here’s my thought download.

I find myself being around my boyfriend’s family, who knew me when I was overweight at 200 pounds, and watched me lose weight all the way down to 125 within the last year.

I want them to know it was hard work. It was very easy in many ways, but emotionally of course, it was difficult and still is, navigating identity crises and stepping into my identity as an effortlessly thin person.

I notice myself having urges or thinking in my head mentally rehearsing saying things to them like, yeah it wasn’t that hard, except now that I’m here, you must know that life is 5050 and still sucks for me half the time too. Like, I don’t want them to know that just because I’m skinny that my life is magically wonderful and amazing and problem free. It’s like I’m justifying my current struggles in life, even if they’re unrelated to weight loss/weight/health, etc. More like I still struggle in business, in relationships kind of thing.

I’m curious why I’m doing this, maybe I want credit for the hard work? Maybe it’s like subtly bragging like I did all this hard work and it’s still hard and I’m still choosing to do it and stay here rather than “go back” because it’s “too hard” and “I’m so tough, watch me live this hard life now and still stay skinny”?

I don’t want them to look at me and say well she did it, I can do it, so then they start attempting to copy the things they see me doing (NSNF, intermittent fasting), then of course when they don’t know thought work, they struggle and probably fail, they’ll feel shame because there must be something wrong with them if it worked for her (me) and not me (them). Maybe that’s part of this.

I don’t want them to think I’m perfect, like all my problems have suddenly gone away now because I’ve lost a ton of weight.
I want them to know I still struggle?

Why do I want them to know I still struggle?
To feel connected to them. To be able to connect with them on something, like if I’m so perfect, and they in their minds view themselves as struggling, they’ll think well she’s so perfect I have nothing to talk about with her.

Or somehow I do it for them to admire me more? Oh she lost all the weight and her life is still hard, that’s inspiring to know that I’m not the only one who still struggles even after reaching a new goal, or getting the “new thing”/house/car/etc.

Let me know what you’re seeing here coaches! Thanks so much.