This One’s Gonna Hurt, But Hanging Onto Those Clothes That Fit You 10 Years Ago Won’t Magically Make Your Body Smaller Now

Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, Katy here. Today on the show we are going to talk about how onto those clothes that fit you 10yrs ago isn’t a magic potion to make your body smaller right now. 

The episode isn’t about the clothes, it’s about your beliefs. We’re going to go deeper in this episode. It’s about you putting this false timeline and the pressure of that timeline on your shoulders unnecessarily because you feel you’re going to be happier in your life or you’ll have a better time on vacation if your body changes before then. 

Holding onto clothes that are too small or ordering a size that doesn’t fit your here-and-now body is a recipe for disaster. It basically means restriction and complete discipline, and that’s not sustainable, and you know that we don’t do restriction and things that aren’t sustainable inside my world.

My clients know how to approach their eating, their exercise, and their health goals in a way that is based on scientific evidence (we aren’t just going to copy what the influencers on TikTok or IG are doing in their WIEIAD videos and pretend that’s going to make us happy, satisfied or healthy), and my clients are able to take strategies that I teach them using my training and expertise as a registered dietitian, and we apply it through the non-diet lens, while using the intuitive eating framework. 

No more posting pictures of yourself skinnier on your refrigerator as “inspiration” for yourself to not eat the cheesecake in the fridge.

No more buying pants in the size you wish you were, while telling yourself that you’ll be so much happier when you get there (even though what it would take to get there would make you miserable).

No more punishing yourself at the gym in order to squeeze into that top that fit you 2 kids ago prior to the pandemic. 

These things that we do to try and “motivate” ourselves to lose weight and get smaller aren’t working. It’s not like holding onto clothes that are too small functions like that machine in the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids. You remember that movie from the 90’s where the dad’s laser machine accidentally shrunk his kids into little doll sized people. The smaller clothes in your closet are not a shrinking machine. It doesn’t work like that. It’s just putting unnecessary pressure on you, creating unrealistic expectations, and it’s making you feel like crap.

In this episode we’re going to get into what to do instead. How do you navigate your desire to be smaller, to be thinner, to wear a smaller size, to fit more comfortably in your clothes, to be more comfortable in an airplane seat? That’s exactly what we’re going to go deeper on today – your beliefs, your fears, your desires, and what to do instead of trying to trick or bribe yourself into weight loss.

Before we dive into our main topic for today, you know what time it is…We’ve got some Wellness Woo to talk about. 

Wellness Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims, or just nonsense. 

Today’s Wellness Woo is: A website called Hers – s/o Shelly. 

My source for this information is the website Hers, along with an article reviewing the company on Healthline. 

So Hers is part of a company called Hims and Hers, and they originally became popular for selling products related to hair loss, but now they sell all sorts of supplements, products like shampoos and creams, as well as actual medications for weight loss, mental health, and sexual health.

So not only can you go on this website and order things like supplements and skincare products, but you can also get a prescription for things like Ozempic, as well as psychiatric medications like Zoloft, Lexapro, Prozac that are commonly used to treat anxiety and depression and sometimes other things.

The concern I have about this is that it’s kind of like buying prescription drugs from the trunk of a car in a poorly lit back alley. 

Yes, these drugs are FDA approved (although the compounded GLP-1 they’re selling isn’t actually FDA approved, and neither are the supplements they’re selling), so it’s confusing because some of the things on this website are legitimate things, and some of the crap they’re selling is nonsense. How on earth is an average consumer supposed to know the difference?

And even if you’re somebody who would be a good fit for a medication like ozempic or zoloft, you need to be getting that from a real life doctor, not some sketchy provider on the internet.

It appears that they use licensed professionals like NPs and PAs to prescribe things, but then the follow ups and med checks are done over some type of messenger support. 

If you’re going to be on a prescription medication of any sort, you need to have contact with a prescribing professional that you can see in real life. 

This is all so dangerous in my opinion. And I get why people would want to go this route, because it’s a lower barrier to entry to get on an antidepressant, or to get ahold of an Rx for Ozempic or Wegovy – because our healthcare system (especially here in America) is so jacked up, but don’t risk your mental or physical wellbeing over saving a few bucks or for the ease and anonymity of doing this online through Hers or websites like it. You deserve better than that. You deserve safe and competent healthcare, and to get it from reputable medical providers and organizations. Keep in mind that His and Hers is a company selling all of this for a profit. They don’t have your actual wellbeing in mind. Whereas your local doctor doesn’t get paid more or less based on the Rx’s he or she writes. They don’t’ get kickbacks from “Big Pharma” contrary to popular belief.

So not only is this website Wellness Woo, because a lot of the stuff on the website is supplements and nonsense, but they’re also selling prescriptions in a really sketchy way. Here’s how you know they’re making a LOT of money off doing this – when you go to the homepage of their website, the main thing that you can click on at the top of the page is for their weight loss products. I guarantee you their biggest money maker is selling people GLP-1 medications, and they don’t give a crap if it’s healthy for you or not. 

My advice is to stay far away from getting prescriptions off the internet like this. 

If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, send it to me at rebuildingtrustwithyourbody@gmail.com. 

Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…how onto those clothes that fit you 10yrs again isn’t magically going to make your body smaller right now. 

Same thing with how ordering a size medium bathing suit for your cruise in January isn’t going to set you up for success. It’s going to set you up for failure, and I don’t use that word lightly. Let’s talk about what to do instead. 

First, let’s look at WHY holding onto clothes that no longer fit, or ordering clothes in a size that doesn’t fit your here-and-now body sets you up for failure:

• It creates pressure for you to restrict and diet. Now you’ve got this tangible thing – this item of clothing – that is in your bedroom or in your closet that you spent money on, that you now feel the need to fit into it. If you aren’t losing weight, and if you can’t ever wear it, you feel like you’ve wasted money. So now you have this added weight on your shoulders to intentionally eat fewer calories, cut out carbs, get more steps, do more workouts, and you’re disconnected from your body, thinking about food 24/7, feeling guilty for eating your favorite dessert or the queso dip at the Mexican restaurant. All because you bought something that doesn’t fit your here-and-now body. 
• It’s haunting you like a ghost in your closet. Holding onto clothes that used to fit you and no longer do (or perhaps clothes that you bought that were too small that you’ve never been able to fit into in the past, or something you just bought in hopes that it would inspire and motivate you to lose weight – all of this is a constant reminder of your current size and your desire to be smaller, which makes you feel like crap and you’re perpetually reminded of this. These clothes that don’t fit are staring back at you in your closet, and every time you see them you think about how they don’t fit, and you wish you were smaller. Then here’s what happens…
• You either end up getting into a restrict-binge cycle, or going on a diet, which sets you up for temporary weight loss and feeling like “it’s working” – only to result in weight gain and feeling like a failure. (I’ll remind you that it wasn’t YOU that failed…)
  • OR you don’t diet, and just feel like you’re a giant loser who is failing. 

Does this sound like a recipe for success? It’s clearly not a winning strategy. You’re never going to hear anyone who is well-qualified and effective at helping people heal their body image tell you to hold onto or purchase clothes that are too small for your current body. You’re just not. It would be like telling someone to paint their house purple when they wanted it to be pink. (That’s a really dumb example, but you get the point – it’s not going to achieve the desired outcome.)

Now that you can see why this doesn’t work, why these clothes that fit you 10 years ago aren’t going to magically make your body smaller now, let’s dig into what this episode is REALLY about – your beliefs. The beliefs you have about yourself, about your body, about your worthiness.

Examining (And Shifting) Your Beliefs About Your Body

I want you to get curious about your thoughts, your feelings and your beliefs about body as it is right now, vs if your body were smaller. In fact, I encourage you to journal about this after you’re done listening to the episode. 

When you think about your body right now, what THOUGHTS go through your head? 

How do you FEEL about your body right now?

Your answers to these questions gives us some clues about your core beliefs about your body. Some examples of core beliefs would be beliefs like:

• Being thinner will make me happier
• People will like me more if I lose weight
• I’ll for sure be healthier if I lose weight
• My body is disgusting right now
• Nobody could ever find me attractive at this size
• I’m not worthy of taking up space
• I should be ashamed of how I’ve let myself get this big

These thoughts you have, and your core beliefs about your body aren’t necessarily true. But what happens is we walk around operating our lives under the assumption that these things are true. But what if they’re not?

What if you questioned whether it’s an absolute certainty that being thinner would make you happier. I know I might have just triggered some of you listening, so if you’re having a reaction to this and you’re feeling like you want to argue with me, take a deep breath and let’s slow down. 

Hear me out…

A while back I was meeting with a client, and one of the things that she and I have talked a lot about in our work together is the way she feels about her body. She’s one of those people who has done ALL the things (and I seriously mean ALL the things) to try and lose weight, and she could lose some weight temporarily, but it always came back on. 

In our work together, we initially focused on breaking her out of the dieting cycle and getting her metabolism working properly again through consistent eating and giving her body the fuel it needed to function properly.  This was so opposite from how she had been focusing on eating as little as possible (which wasn’t helping her lose weight, it was making her obsessed with food and slowing down her metabolism). 

And through this process we talked a lot about how she felt towards her body, and we worked on cultivating compassion and kindness towards her body instead of being so critical of it all the time. 

In our session recently she said to me, “I had this epiphany the other day. I realized that I am actually the heaviest I’ve ever been, I haven’t lost any weight, but I’m the HAPPIEST I’ve ever been in my life.” It gives me goosebumps to say this. She had spent so much time, energy, money and effort obsessing over shrinking her body and losing weight, and lo and behold, she discovered that by shifting her BELIEFS and the way she treated her body she started to feel happier in her life. 

So is it possible that you can also find happiness without focusing on weight loss? Is is possible that being thinner than you are now isn’t REQUIRED for you to be happier? You might be in a headspace where you genuinely don’t feel that it’s possible for you, and I get that. I know how deep the feelings of body shame and hatred can run. What I want to do here, however, is plant a seed that it just *might* be possible for you to find more happiness in your life when thinness and weight loss aren’t your main focus. 

I’d also invite you to consider times that maybe you’ve lost weight or been a smaller size. Were you truly happier then? (I get there might be things that were legitimately physically easier for your body at a smaller size – AND keep in mind that you were younger then too, so that might be part of it. It’s so easy to blame our weight for all of our ailments and difficulties.) A lot of my clients tell me that if they’re being honest with themselves, they weren’t happy when their weight was lower. They still weren’t satisfied with their body and wanted to lose more weight. 

So let’s challenge that core belief that you can only be happier if you’re thinner. It’s not necessarily guaranteed to be true. Let’s poke some holes in that assumption and expand your mind towards things that stand a better chance of making you happier, such as living life more fully. 

Another core belief that I’d like to challenge is the one about how you’re not worthy of taking up space. That you’re too big, that you need to be smaller, that you’d be more likable and lovable if you were skinnier.

Hear me loud and clear when I tell you this: You ARE worthy of taking up space, just as you are now, and at any size you are. I don’t care if you gain 1,000 more pounds. You would still be worthy of taking up space. You are a wonderful, incredible human being who has so much to offer this world, and you deserve to take up as much space as your body needs. You deserve love, respect, and belonging just for being you, and regardless of your body’s size, weight, shape or appearance. It sucks that we live in a world with so much anti-fat bias and weight stigma, where people in larger bodies are treated in really terrible ways. That’s real, and that’s valid. But what I’m talking about here is your core beliefs deep down inside your soul about your worthiness – that’s what we need to challenge (and of course we need to keep challenging society’s fat phobia too). YOU ARE WORTHY.

Like I said earlier, I want you to journal about this after you’re done listening to this episode, or if you don’t have time right then, put some time on your calendar to do it later. I even have a free resource that’s going to help you to do the journaling. It’s my Body Image Journal Prompts. Go grab them right now and they’ll be in your inbox when we’re done. These prompts are going to help you dig in and go deeper into your body image struggles, so that you can learn how to be kind and compassionate towards your body, even on the days that part of you still wishes you were smaller.

Shame and Body Image

Chances are, this discussion is getting you in touch with some deep pain that you have felt about your body. That deep pain comes from shame.

Shame about our bodies shows up in so many ways throughout our lives:

• Holding back tears because someone commented on your weight gain or asked if you’re pregnant
• Feeling pain in your knees or lower back and thinking “Look what I’ve done to myself”
• You’ve been treated better when your weight is lower
• You desperately wanted to play volleyball in junior high or high school, but you were too ashamed to wear the spandex shorts that were part of the uniform
• In gym class you’d change clothes in the stall of the locker room so that the other girls couldn’t see you in your bra and underwear
• Your doctor told you that you needed to lose your “baby fat” and that you were gaining too much weight for a kid your age
• You were diagnosed with pre-diabetes and were told that if you don’t lose weight you’re going to give yourself type 2 diabetes
• You get chafing on the inside of your thighs when it’s hot outside, and the way it stings in the shower feels like punishment for being too fat
• Back when you were smaller your blood pressure was lower, and your bloodwork was better, and you’re afraid that you’re damaging your health by not trying to lose weight

If we turn to Brene Brown, the guru of studying shame, she defines shame as, “feeling unworthy of love, acceptance and belonging.” Body shame makes us feel unworthy of love, acceptance and belonging. 

I want you to also journal about the story you’re telling yourself about your body. What’s the story you’re telling yourself about your body right now? And the story you’re telling yourself about what would happen if you were smaller? And the story you’re telling yourself about if your body were larger?

From Brene Brown’s research on shame, she has also come up with 4 steps we can take to deal with shame when we are feeling it. Next time you’re feeling shame about your body, here Brene’s 4 steps for shame resilience:

1. Recognize, name and understand your shame triggers.
2. Identify the external factors that led to the feeling of shame
3. Connect with others to receive and offer empathy
4. Speak about your feelings of shame with others

That’s why it’s so powerful to foster connection and community with other people who get it, who understand the struggle with food and body image. If you want a place where you can talk about this and connect with others, come on into my FB community called Intuitive Eating Made Easy. It’s a beautiful community of wise and compassionate people who will be there for you on the days you’re struggling. And you can offer support and lift up others when they’re struggling. I’ll put the link to it in the show notes. If you’re not in the group already, come on in and join the fun, and invite your friends, your sister, your cousin, your daughter, your aunt, your mom to join us too! 

Let’s wrap up by talking about the elephant in the room…your fears about gaining weight.

Fears About Weight Gain

One of the things that I hear over and over again that trips people up when it comes to clothing  (and this actually represents the deeper fears and beliefs with body image) is the fear that if you get rid of old clothes that are too small, that you’re basically giving up. You’re throwing in the towel. You’re letting yourself go. It feels like it represents letting go of the hope or the possibility that you could lose weight – and then our brain tends to go into catastrophic and all-or-none thinking and tells us, “Well I guess I’m just going to stop trying to lose weight and let myself become fat and miserable.” 

Suddenly we’ve gone from, “Hey, let’s get rid of clothes that are too small that are putting unnecessary pressure on you, and that are making you want to diet,” to, “I guess I’ll just gain tons of weight and hate myself forever.” 

That’s not at all what we’re saying here. And isn’t it so interesting how quickly our brain jumps to these scenarios. It’s not just you – we all do this sometimes. In the world of psychology it’s called “thinking errors” or “cognitive distortions” and they trip us up. It’s these fallacies in our thinking patterns that get in our way. 

I have a hack here, a mindset shift that’s going to transform your beliefs about your body and about your happiness – if you allow it to. If you give it a chance.

When you think about your fears of gaining weight, and you think, “What if I gain weight, and XYZ happens” (you’re miserable, you’re unhealthy, you can’t ride the rollercoaster, you’ll never find a partner, etc.) – when you’re thinking “what if I gain weight” – I want you to change it to “EVEN IF I gain weight…” 

“Even if I gain weight I deserve to take up space.”

“Even if I gain weight I can pursue dating. People of all sizes fall in love.”

“Even if I gain weight and can’t ride the rollercoaster, I can still enjoy fun things in life.”

“Even if I gain weight and have to get bigger clothes, I can come up with creative ways to get some cash to spend.” 

“Even if I gain weight and have some health issues, I can address those health issues directly, without going back to dieting.” 

You see, when we shift from “what if” which stirs up all sorts of fears and thought distortions, and we shift to “even if” it moves us into a headspace of empowerment. You start to see that even if your fear comes true, you can deal with it. You might not like it, but you can deal with it. You are resourceful. You are resilient. You are capable. And you deserve happiness, love, acceptance and belonging – no matter your body’s size or appearance.

Let’s recap…

In this episode, we covered:

• Examining your thoughts, feelings and core beliefs about your body. (Don’t forget to grab the Body Image Journal Prompts to help you with this.)
• How shame is connected to our body image
• Brene Brown’s 4 steps to shame resilience:
  • Recognize, name and understand your shame triggers.
  • Identify the external factors that led to the feeling of shame
  • Connect with others to receive and offer empathy
  • Speak about your feelings of shame with others
• Shifting your fears about weight gain from “What if” to “Even if.”

We started off by talking about those old clothes in your closet that you’re holding onto like a security blanket, and we got really deep here. You might need to listen to this episode again, especially if you were on the go and didn’t have a chance to take any notes. Don’t be afraid to go back through it to let this really soak in. And if you know somebody who needs to hear this, do me a favor and text them a link to the episode. 

In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

Resources Mentioned:

• Grab my Body Image Journal Prompts
• Join my Intuitive Eating Made Easy FB group

Sources:

• https://www.forhers.com/
• https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/hers-review#1
• https://positivepsychology.com/shame-resilience-theory/

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