Is a “revenge body” a sustainable weight loss failure?

May 1, 2017 Ashley 0 Comments

Revenge might be a dish best served cold.

But a revenge body?

These dishes sure are hot:

Khloe Kardashian. Kaylee Cuoco. Britney.

Even Brad Pitt after escaping the grip of Angelina.

Each had a hideous split with their worse half, and each were better off for it, ultimately, when it came to fitness. See, the idea of a “revenge body”, is that you break up with some lover who wronged you and get back at them – by getting into the best shape of your life while meeting new goals. Kaylee Cuoco was never fat, but now she has abs of steel. Kelly Osbourne was, but now she graces the pages of Vogue. And Khloe went from something closer to Macy’s float… to Armenian Marilyn Monroe overnight.

So what’s this all mean?

Does it mean that – to lose weight and that to get your best body – you gotta part ways with “bae”?

Not necessarily. See, it starts with something bit more internal. The reason so many relationships fail in the first place is because we aren’t happy with ourselves first; we aren’t taking care of ourselves enough to care about the other person in our life. Sure, sometimes the guilty party’s our partner. They aren’t available enough emotionally or physically, so we lose hope, make the mistake of choosing to stay anyway, and “let ourselves go”. Or maybe they simply aren’t committed. Or they cheat. Or they do something heinously worthy of leaving. So we do. Kudos for that. And the desire for vengeance thereafter, might be a nice ignition switch to our weight loss goals. But it can’t be what we fuel up on every day. We can’t keep doing it for them – for the hope they might see and be sorry – not if we’re legitimately going to move on with our lives. If we don’t find some positive goals as gas to power on, our weight loss plans either fail – or some other aspect of our lives do. Why? Because we’ve A.) been focusing on something negative and spiteful the whole time, B.) probably not gotten the envious attention we wanted from said ex, and C.) aren’t focusing on our own goals surrounding our own growth. If we do set those goals, though, the whole world opens up. Weight loss becomes weight maintenance, as healthy moving ‘n fooding are just our new habits. And so is winning at life, because we’ve gotten into the habit of setting new personal goals for ourselves each time we hit the previous one. If your only goal is for someone to externally validate you with their jealousy or regret, how long can that really last?

How boring.

Or, as briefly hinted above, a relationship gone wrong is often about ourselves. We get complacent or lose sight of our own goals. And that’s when we stop taking care of our needs – from our gooey centers to our fleshy, outer shells. (And our partner’s as well.) Typically, they end up following suit until both of our fleshy outer shells are thick ‘n jiggly from Netflixing too much with Chinese food while life passes us by.

The answer in every case – whether you’re in a relache still or not – is to always sit down and have a heart-to-heart with yourself. Where are the feelings coming up that’re keeping you from being your best you? And why? If you’ve been revenge-bodying, but falling off the wagon, have you found new ways to do this for yourself? What are your goals? If you’re not sure, lemme ask it this way: What were your goals before you met the bag of sadness you just CTRL-X’d out’ve your life? Go get on those. Fear’s paralytic level difficult to overcome sometimes. But only initially. It’s a lot like that first work out. Once you get going, momentum takes over and pushes you the rest’ve the way.

Or, if you’re still in a relache: is your partner discouraging you from reaching your best you? Sabotaging your diet and exercise? Belittling what matters to you? Or is it you, mayhaps? Have you gotten too comfy in coupledom that you’ve let it replace your long-term goals? And are you subconsciously suffering because you know that’s not what you want? (Not their fault, btw. Just something you gotta modify on your own.) These are answers only you can give. But once you do, once you find out, the answer’s unignorable. And it becomes your positive motivating force to get you back on track – or on track for the first time – for you. And no one else. Just because you love someone and share a branch of your life tree with them, doesn’t mean the whole thing’s gotta be a vine that intertwines until you don’t know yourself anymore. If they’re worth it, they’ll be growing into their own goals, too – and your leaves will fist bump eachother encouragingly the whole way up. Even if you’re in a funk, you can always be the force that starts today, changing that, ‘til they follow suit.

So instead of burning bridges with your lover and getting a revenge body, try building bridges back to yourself and getting an amends body. An amends with the real you, your personal goals, what it is you’ve always wanted from life. And if your partner can’t accept it, then throw up the deuce fingers.

Even though it’s “V” shaped, it doesn’t signify vengeance against anyone from your past.

It signifies victory for future you.