Thoughts on Self Confidence.

15th July 2012

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Thoughts on Self Confidence.

Last August, when I started this journey, I had a very particular body type and goal in mind. I wanted to look tall and lean, like all the models you see in ads and on TV. So I ran and cut calories to slim down, always wanting to be thinner. My body did change. I got skinny. I lived by the number on the scale. I lost twenty pounds and learned that I could exercise (and gained a good amount of confidence), but ended up looking differently than I had hoped for.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t change my skeletal make-up. No amount of exercise could change my height or the size of my pelvis or the width of my rib cage. It took me about seven months to realize this and come to terms with this fact. If I had kept up my previous exercise regimen, I would’ve never been satisfied with my body. The ideal image that I had in my head simply wasn’t possible! At a stocky 5’7”, I would never look like a naturally lean 6’3” Calvin Klein model.

Over the past nine weeks, I’ve had a real shift in my views on my own body. All of this lifting is making me bigger and wider, but it’s not bothering me in the slightest. I feel like my body is moving towards where it naturally wants to go. I’m meant to be short and stocky. I’m meant to be shaped like a (hot) mini-fridge. I’m meant to pick up heavy things and push them around.

How my body looks kind of feels secondary to what I’m doing in the gym. My waist size (as well as shoulders, arms, chest, and legs) has increased since I started lifting, but I feel more solid and more powerful. It doesn’t mean a thing to me anymore. I don’t care what the number says on the inside of my pants. What matters is that I can deadlift your weight with no problem. The confidence that I have gained from knowing that far outweighs any amount of confidence that I could have had from being “skinny.” I, of course, am not going to allow myself to get fat (because that would inhibit my lifting), but am going to base my happiness on how I feel rather than a set of meaningless numbers. Looking good is just a fun bonus to hitting the gym.

I love how my body is changing. I love how my mind is changing. I’m loving who and what I was always meant to be.

No one can take that away from me.

I just love everything about this post. I could never say it better myself. It’s not about how my body looks. It’s about what I can do with it.

Okay, if I’m honest, it IS a little bit about how my body looks, though. I’m not immune to my own inborn, biological desires to increase my own status. In the wild, higher-status primates have better odds of surviving and so do their children; it’s normal for humans to seek higher status. And for us, today, being thin, young and beautiful is the simplest way to instantly achieve higher status. That’s what women mean when they say, “I’m not dressing up for some man to stare at me; I’m wearing this dress and these heels for myself, because it makes me feel beautiful and powerful.” That is what it means to feel powerful because of an outfit. It means that you can feel how your status is increasing based on your ability to exceed standards associated with status.

Wow, this post turned super-nerdy in an instant, didn’t it? Anyway, uh, go follow mikeywantsitall! He’s fun.

Tagged: body image body acceptance status primates mikeywantsitall