Someone, I don’t remember who, once said that sculpting and elephant was actually pretty easy.  You started, so the quote went, with a lump of rock and just chipped away everything that didn’t look like an elephant.  It was that simple.

Since I’ve been working on losing weight, one of the things I’ve had to do is a lot of discovering which parts of me were, metaphorically speaking, the elephant, and which were not.  I’ve had to chip away not only at fat, but at a lot of old beliefs that were keeping the fat in place.  Finding the metaphorical elephant has occurred both on the physical and the mental level, and so far it’s been an interesting experience.

On the physical level it’s been about discovering the body that was hidden under the flab.  I’m learning that I’ll always have boobs and hips, but that I’m built more in a classical hourglass shape, with a smaller waist than I would have imagined I’d have.  I’m starting to see definition in my jawline, my shoulders and my calves.  When I flex my muscles you can actually see muscles now.  I’m still adjusting to the idea that my body has parts that are admirable, even pretty.  The more I work on getting fit, the more I see that the sculpture I’m creating may actually be a thing of beauty by the time I get to the end.

While I’m sculpting the outer shell, I’ve also had to do a lot of peeling away on the inside.  I’ve harbored a lot of hatred for my body over the years.  It peeled and cracked and itched.  It reacted badly to sun and heat.  My head had migraines, my eyes didn’t work right, my spine was curved and my heart had fits.   I spent a lot of time dwelling on what my body couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and not much time thinking how incredible it was that, after I’d neglected it for so long, it did anything at all.  After many years of neglect and hatred, I’m learning to let those feelings go and value myself.   It’s a slow process, and I still have days when a litany of “you’re fat, stupid and no one will love you” plays in my head, but those days are getting fewer and farther between.

Mostly, right now, I’m just enjoying the process of becoming.  I’m still a half formed sculpture, but I keep chipping away.  I know eventually I’ll chip away everything that doesn’t need to be, and all that will be left is an authentic and healthy me.