Today I got the “Maura! You look great, have you lost weight?” greeting. I sat down this afternoon and reflected on how detrimental these kind of comments used to be to me and what it made me believe about my larger body. So happy to have broken free from this

For the record: I have not lost weight.

Caveat before reading: I always have to preface these kind of posts by saying that I don’t care what you do with your body. You have body autonomy to do what you wish. Your body is insignificant to me, it’s the least interesting thing about you – I like to focus on what makes you YOU, and that has nothing to do with how your body looks.

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Congratulating, celebrating and praising my weight loss only validated the negative thoughts, feelings and emotions I had about my larger body.

Those thoughts were reinforced and more deeply ingrained in me with every adulation I received. I knew my worth, my acceptance, my lovability was based on how my body looked. People praised me when I lost weight, they must have been completely disgusted with me when I was bigger. They confirmed all the negative views of people in larger bodies.

This reduced me to believing that my body was the most valuable thing about myself, and it made me focus more on how I look and less on who I was.

Which resulted in me ignoring all the wonderful attributes of myself and solely focusing on my looks. I was blind to seeing who I really was, I was blind to the uniqueness I bring to the world, my confidence was fleeting.

My body is simply my shell and has nothing to do with the human I am, the heart that is within, the soul that wants to shine. My weight will never reveal my passionate pursuits in life, my weight will never show you my sense of humor, and it has nothing to do with how I love others. I can be my confident, authentic, loving, fun, empathetic self regardless of my weight.

When receiving this praise, I felt everyone’s love and admiration.
I witnessed for myself how they finally saw my beauty.
If they feel this way about me now, how did they feel about me when I was larger?
“Oh you look so beautiful now” was “You were so ugly when you were bigger” in my head.

In my large body, did I even exist to them? I mean, how could they possibly love someone that looked like me?
When I gain the weight back, how will I be able to face them?
Will the disgust they feel be obvious?
Will they think I’m a failure?

To me, my weight loss was not worthy of the amount of praise I received.
How about when I got that big corporate job?
How about when I got promoted?
How about when I bought my house or when I left that big corporate job to follow my passion?

I NEVER received as much recognition for those amazing achievements than I did for losing weight. That makes me incredibly sad.

I want to praise you for more than your weight.
I want to see the remarkable woman within.
I want to recognize your worth.

I am not a failure if I gain weight.
I am not a success if I lose weight.
I am not nothing if I stay the same weight.

And neither are you.

You are MORE than your weight.
You are WORTHY as you are.
You have SO MUCH in your life that should be celebrated and praised.

So, what can I praise you for?