Recently I was reading an article in Seventeen Magazine which featured Jordin Sparks’ story about losing weight. While, I encourage you to use your own media filter to avoid messages that can be triggering or harmful to your health (you must be the judge of that and I will help you do that in another blog soon) I liked some components of this article.
Jordin shares myths about weight loss. I like her first one: It will change your life. This is something we ask students in our pre-workshop survey and we bring it up a lot in our workshops. Do you think losing weight will change your life? The answer is resoundingly: YES. People think losing weight (or being a different size, shape, color, etc.) will change their life. But why do we think this? Well we have been conditioned to think so by the media and ads we consume on a daily basis. So before we but the myth we must remember we are only human! The first step is recognizing the truth!
Weight loss (or being a different size, shape, etc.) won’t erase your problems or make you instantly confident. Don’t believe me? Ask some people. Or just listen to Jordin. She is 100% right it doesn’t change your life. And if you think it will land you a boyfriend, new job or make you instantly popular trust me it won’t.
She has a few other myths in her article, but I liked this one the best. Look for my blog about filtering media in your life next. We may not be able to change the media and ads in an instant (it is going to take a LONG time to make small changes), but we can be smarter about what we consume. Being aware is your best defense against getting sucked into a world of wanting to be thinner, smaller, different. Trust me!
Finally Free,
Bridget Loves
