I usually don’t watch Oprah, but her show caught my eye yesterday afternoon. A follow-up of woman who had previously lost 175 pounds only to gain it back again, was one of the show’s subjects.

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks:

Looking back, Kathrine says her biggest mistake was not losing the weight for herself. “I made it about everybody else. I was either doing it for them or to get a reaction from them,” she says. “The obsession or the running to food got replaced with people’s attention. It got replaced with the motivation of other people saying great job.”

Weight loss attention is definitely addictive! It makes me feel good; it gives me more motivation. What happens when I am done losing weight and the attention is gone? Will I recover? I need to face this issue head on before it becomes a problem for me.

Both Oprah and Katherine mentioned the book “Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything” by Geneen Roth and how it helped Katherine to love herself.

I think that is what I need to find for myself now. I know I “like” myself, but I don’t think I “love” myself. And I need to make sure I am doing all this for “me” and no one else!

I found a couple of her older books on the library web site, and I have one of them requested to be sent to my local branch. I don’t think I have an emotional attachment to food anymore, at least I don’t feel I do at this time of my life.

My new mission is to find the path to self-love! Yay me!

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