Day 19 — The Cost of Forcing Myself

From 2016 to 2021, I tried everything I could to lose weight. And I don’t mean casually trying a few things. I mean I threw myself into it. Diets. Programs. Strict nutrition plans. Workout regimens. Accountability systems. Coaches. Trainers. I was disciplined. I was committed. I was serious about it.

And nothing worked.

Every time I tried something new and it didn’t produce the result I wanted, I didn’t just feel disappointed. I turned on myself. The voice in my head was relentless. What is wrong with you? Why can’t you do this? You always fail.

It became a loop. I would push hard, feel hopeful for a moment, then watch the effort collapse. When it did, I would shame myself for not having enough willpower. Then I would try again, this time harder. For five years, I lived inside that cycle.

It didn’t just affect my body. It affected my entire life.

I stopped wanting to leave the house. I mostly spent time with my sister. I didn’t date. I didn’t meet new people. I avoided situations where I might feel exposed. I told myself it was temporary, that I would re-enter life once I “fixed” the problem.

The forcing and failing created a massive self-worth issue that I didn’t recognize at first. I thought the issue was my body. It took about a year to understand that what was really unraveling was how I saw myself. And it has taken many more years to slowly unwind what I wound so tightly around my identity.

The deeper cost wasn’t the weight. It was the war.

I was trying to eliminate a version of myself I didn’t accept. Every attempt was fueled by rejection. I believed pressure would create change because that had always been my strategy in other areas of my life. Work harder. Be more disciplined. Push through. Earn the outcome.

But this time, the strategy backfired.

Instead of building trust with myself, I eroded it. Instead of creating momentum, I created fear. Trying began to feel dangerous because failing meant another round of self-attack. It makes sense that I pushed the way I did. That’s what I knew how to do. In many parts of my life, force had worked. But here, it came at a cost I didn’t see until much later.

I’m still unwinding that cost.

I still want to lose weight. I still care about my health. But I cannot unknow what forcing myself did to my sense of worth. I cannot pretend that shame is a sustainable strategy.

Sometimes the pattern isn’t the most harmful thing. Sometimes it’s the way we try to eliminate it that does the deeper damage.

It makes sense that I did what I knew. It also makes sense that it didn’t work.

Today’s prompt:
Where has forcing myself cost me more than the pattern ever did?

I’m not trying to resolve that immediately.
I’m just learning to see the cost clearly.