Learning to Stop Fighting My Body

As I mentioned in my previous post, this year I decided to work on my weight, my healing, and my relationship with myself.

And as a parent, that’s complicated.

Because while I am trying to heal, I am also raising a child. I love her more than anything. I want her to be happy. That’s my priority. But I also believe in structure. And sometimes she hates that structure.

Sometimes when I say, “Okay, let’s do it your way,” she panics and says, “But I’m just a child.” And she’s right. She needs guidance.

So I won’t know for sure if I’m doing everything right until she’s 25 and maybe sitting in a psychologist’s office talking about something I did wrong.

Like most of us, I try my best and hope for the best.

But this year, I made a decision to focus on myself too.

And yes — I still feel guilt about that.

For years, I was stuck in a vicious cycle: fighting my body, stress eating, feeling ashamed, promising change, repeating the same patterns. It felt like addiction.

I realised something hard about myself: if I don’t take care of my emotional health, I can become addicted to anything that gives me relief.

I don’t like alcohol, so that was never my escape. But sugar was. Cigarettes were.

There was something about that oral stimulation — something soothing, something numbing. I’m only starting to unpack that in therapy.

Yesterday something shifted even more.

A friend mentioned they had lost a backpack full of sweets — the exact kind I used to eat as a child. The sweets that were there when my parents weren’t. The sweets that became my comfort and my secret.

When I saw them, I felt something strange.

Relief.

Relief that I didn’t want them.

I haven’t eaten sweets since December. Two months now. And yes, the surgery helps with physical control. But this is different. I don’t crave them the same way.

Sugar, for me personally, wasn’t just food. It was long-term self-soothing. It led to inflammation, insulin resistance, and I was only a few steps away from diabetes in my mid-30s.

Something in my mindset shifted.

I’m not saying sugar is evil. I’m not saying I will never eat it again.

I’m saying I choose not to — because it doesn’t serve my health.

For the first time, it’s not about punishment. It’s about care.

And then I realised something even bigger.

I’ve spent years being angry at my body.

Why does it look like this?Why doesn’t it work better?Why isn’t it helping me?

But the truth is — my body never failed me.

I failed it.

This body carried a child.Fed a child.Survived minimal sleep and maximum stress.Kept functioning through junk food and cigarettes.Bounced back over and over again.

And now, when I see the loose skin forming as I lose weight — I don’t feel disgust.

I feel gratitude.

It’s like a balloon slowly shrinking back after being overstretched for years.

I haven’t smoked this year. I haven’t eaten sugar this year. And it’s not even dramatic. It’s quiet.

The dopamine rush isn’t there anymore.

That doesn’t mean I will never have a drink or a cigarette again. Sometimes my husband and I escape for a night away — we talk, laugh, maybe have a couple of drinks, maybe a cigarette. Two or three times a year.

And I don’t want shame around that.

I don’t want to live in extremes.

I just don’t want to eat sugar because I’m stressed.I don’t want to smoke because I feel unworthy.I don’t want to punish my body because I feel “not enough.”

I want to choose.

And why am I losing weight?

For health.

But also because I want to feel strong. Clear. Focused. At home in my body.

There are 30 kilos still to go. And that’s okay. I’m celebrating the first quarter already.

This isn’t about becoming smaller.

It’s about becoming kinder to myself.

Maybe healing from body image trauma isn’t about control.

Maybe it’s about finally stopping the war with the one thing that stayed loyal through everything — your own body.