Living with lipedema || Do you think slim

Last week a number of videos of Faja Lourens passed by on social media. Now I don’t rate her very highly, mainly because of her crazy diet methods, but now I was just flabbergasted by her statements. Two statements really shocked me the most: “fat people are unhappy because otherwise they wouldn’t be fat” and “you can think yourself slim”. I immediately heard my best friend in the back of my mind with a snarky comment along the lines of “of course skinny person, we’re going to thank ourselves slim”. I just find it incredibly sad that people with a large platform make statements like this at a time when so many people struggle with their weight and body. But mainly because they completely ignore other reasons why someone can be fatter.

Positive starting point

Now I went to look further because these were small pieces that pass by. Normally I would bounce and immediately angrily write a blog but I didn’t want to do that this time. I wanted to see where her train of thought came from and what she meant by her statement. Maybe after years of lipedema, I will become a bit more lenient. What she meant by the statement thinking slim is that it is about feeling good enough and working on yourself from acceptance. Be happy with who you are and use that as a starting point.

I agree with her that from the starting point “you are good the way you are”, you start from a completely different starting point to work on yourself. A much more loving point than starting with everything that is not good about yourself. But how do you do that if you are constantly sent from pillar to post for years and always hear that your body will come from eating too much? If you always get “blame” and are told that it’s your fault, but it turns out that you have lipedema?

Changed look

If you have been told for years that your changing body is up to you and that every complaint points to your overweight, it causes mental damage and perhaps trauma. Especially when you discover years later that you have lipedema and have no influence on many aspects. The mental damage is already done and to repair it, you will have to work even harder while you already have to work so hard on the physical level because of the lipedema.

I get the point that change always starts on the mental plane and feeling good enough is an ideal starting point. But if it was that easy, why do so many women and especially women with lipedema struggle with poor self-esteem? Why do so many women think they’re not good enough? Partly because of the image in the media and the Faja Lourens in this world who focus on being thin. But also because many women only discover very late that they have lipedema. So positive mindset and accepting yourself as you are, totally agree. But let’s also consider that many of us not only have lipedema but also a considerable trunk of mental baggage and that it’s just not that easy to flip that switch. And yet I close with the reminder that you are good and beautiful just the way you are, don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Take care!

xoxo

Image source: Unsplash.com