For a while now I’ve been talking to people about my weight loss journey and how I managed to go from a hefty 69 kgs to a healthier 54 kgs. However, most people would just nod politely (even those who asked me about how I lost so much weight) and move on to another topic of conversation (usually something about healthy eating or exercising). Until two days ago, while cleaning out my laptop, I came across and old photo of mine. I decided to do a ‘Before and After‘ picture because, honestly speaking, the journey to losing weight is long, arduous, lonely and fraught with self doubt. The fact that I’ve been through it, and have the pictures to prove it is inspirational not only for me, but I realize now, for a lot of other people as well.
Although it’s great to see how far I’ve come on the journey to shape myself not only physically but emotionally and spiritually as well, I have to say that it wasn’t easy to put up the ‘Before’ picture for the world to see and also (invariably) to judge. I felt the familiar hesitation that comes with the vanity that is only human. At one point, the thought “I was so fat!” overpowered the thought “Wow! I’ve come so far!” However, yoga not only gives us physical strength but also emotional strength and I told myself that that was me and it’s nothing to be hesitant about. I looked at the picture again and told myself that though I was many many kgs heavier, I was smiling and glowing. And many years later, I still am :). So I put up the picture and realized how powerful a visual medium can be. By the evening there were close to 50 people (many who were probably coming to the page for the first time) who had commented/liked the picture. Many said that it was inspiring, others asked for advice still others expressed disbelief. By the end of today, after many hours of thinking about all I’ve been through on the elusive quest for weight loss, I decided that a blog was in order.