Confidence At Every Size

This week, I had a conversation that stuck with me.

I met a woman who was talking about her struggles with weight loss. She’s been trying for a long time, and like many people, she’s tired and frustrated. Progress is slow, and the effort is heavy.

She started telling me about a friend of hers. This friend is confident, friendly, and good at connecting with people. The kind of person who can walk up to a stranger and start a conversation without hesitation.

Then she said, “I can’t do that.”

She went on to explain that because she’s overweight and unhappy with how she looks, she doesn’t feel confident enough to act like her friend. In her mind, her friend’s confidence comes from being small, lean, and attractive, and people are receptive to her because of how she look.

First, that comment made me really sad. Then, it got me thinking.

I think this belief is incredibly common, especially among people who’ve been trying to lose weight for years. There’s this quiet assumption that when the weight finally comes off, life will finally open up. Confidence will arrive. Social ease will follow. Everything in your life will get better.

And to be fair, some things will 100% improve when we focus on our health. Movement will feel easier. Energy will increase. Daily life might feel more rewarding and less exhausting. And those things do matter.

But changing your appearance won't magically erase all your problems.

Because what's limiting your confidence isn’t stored in body fat.

And self-belief doesn’t magically appear at a certain number on the scale.

It's common to feel that self confidence is inversely correlated with body size. And this isn't our fault. We were raised in society that taught us this. But how cool would it be if we could unlearn this self limiting belief, and discover that these two things don't actually have to be related at all?

Because let me tell you something: If you are not confident in yourself right now, you are not going to magically become a confident person when you lose weight.

Confidence is a skill. It’s a relationship with yourself. It's the reward you get from being introspective and doing a lot of uncomfortable work on yourself.

And it’s something that can you can start building today, regardless of where you are in your health journey.

So yes - improving your health can improve your life. We believe that deeply. But there are also ways to improve your life today, that don't require the prerequisite of changing your body composition first.

We all deserve to feel confident now. Not later. Not “once I lose the weight" or "after I earn it". Right now, as we are.

And some of the most powerful work we can do isn’t shrinking ourselves, but learning how to take up space exactly as we are.

— Alaina