Hello friends of this blog on how I lost 100 pounds without gastric bypass or weight loss drugs. I recently wrote about how a sleeping bag helped me lose weight and as you know, I love to write posts the intrigue. So today we're looking at how I lost 100 pounds with Mrs. Meyers (yep, the cleaning products lady).
In the last post, I shared how I learned as a kid to take care of everyone at the expense of myself. Since there wasn't enough of me to care for others (parents, step-parents, foster care kids, half-siblings) and me, me did without. When a nightly caregiver was needed for four foster children under age four, it was 11-year old me. Many other situations like this left me with a warped understanding of self-care.
Piggy-backing on the last post about how I lost 100 pounds by learning THAT I need to care for myself, I'm thinking about how WHAT self-care means. I've always learned to make do, manage without or do for myself. I put myself through junior and senior year of college by working all summer and living off $900. That meant a lot of frugality. When I didn't have money to buy enough food, I didn't and got down to about 100 pounds. I didn't buy many things or bought the cheapest I could.
Cut to 2011, two stillborn babies, taking the antidepressant Paxil and I'm way overweight, still, ironically from not eating right. Paxil took away any limit switches. I overate because I didn't know when to stop. This wasn't all bad as my limit switches were set too low and my pain tolerance, too high. More on that. However, I still didn't know how to say no or see to it I had what I needed. I didn't even know what I wanted. I just made do.
But I had no problem knowing what others wanted and needed. My parents and siblings were very clear on what they wanted and expected. I knew what my husband and children wanted and needed and I love providing for them. What I struggled with is indulging myself. This is partly because, as I started this post, I gave so much that there wasn't enough leftover.
But on a deeper level, I learned that I didn't deserve the best or even good or basic necessities. I don't know how exactly I got that message. My parents never SAID I didn't deserve them. They just didn't provide them. For me. They made sure they had what they needed and wanted. There was a lot of talk of "pitching in" but not much of anyone besides me doing it. So I guess I just figured, I got what was good enough for who it was for. And so now it feels really wrong to indulge a preference or buy what I want.
So, what has this to do with Mrs. Meyers. I've been a Shipt shopper for 6 years and many people order this product. It never occurred to me to buy it because it was more expensive, a "luxury brand" I thought. Not for the likes of me who only gets the cheapest of the cheap. But then I tried some, realized it smelled nice and was easier on my hands. I admitted to my husband that I like it. And he said, "so get some?" So, I charted some really foreign territory and (gasp) bought some. Now I subscribe to a quart a month 😆 And I started buying expensive hand lotion, too!
So what does that have to do with how I lost 100 pounds? When I was trapped in this self-made prison of austerity, I felt helpless and hopeless. Cutting myself too short made me sick and tired. But giving myself permission to express opinions and indulge some preferences helped boost confidence. I learned that spending an extra dollar on myself didn't deprive anyone. That my opinions should be as important to me as others' (more maybe). That I deserved some nice things too.
If you're nodding vigorously at this, you're a stranger to self-care, too. So lesson number one, stop letting others dictate everything. Start expressing preferences and opinions of your own. If you can't do something nice for yourself without feeling guilty, it probably means someone in your life told you it was wrong to. They were wrong and had an ulterior motive. Lack of self-care is never in your best interest but is often in someone else's. More on that later.
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