For so many of us humans, being thin wasn’t just a preference—it was practically a full-time job. I was born n 1965, and grew up absorbing glossy images from magazines, watching impossibly sculpted bodies on screens, and quietly measuring myself against standards that were never designed to be met. The financial world had the 99% and the 1%. So did the entertainment, beauty, and fashion industry. Somewhere along the way, thinness became tangled up with worthiness. Even some job opportunities were measured upon the weight on the scale. I counted calories like currency, negotiated with mirrors, and told myself that happiness lived just five or ten pounds away. It wasn’t vanity—it was survival in a culture that kept moving the finish line. As an obese child from about age five through about thirteen, I heard my parents' friends and my large extended family members say at celebrations, "Such a pretty face. If only she lost the weight, she would be beautiful." They unashamedly stated these sentences aloud to my parents and to each other, gossiping as if I were not in the room, the ballroom, the synagogue, the picnic. I know I am not alone.
My mother put me on the same diets she tried as an adult, garnished from magazines and not from the doctors' office. On the flip side of that, food equaled love in my family. I was loved a lot. If we kids ate our entire meal, we were given a reward of dessert, at every meal. For each "A" made on our report card, we earned either a dime or a trip to the ice cream and candy store. Love, food, education, and status within the family were all too muddled. At age twelve, my mother took me to an endocrinologist, a nutritionist, and a heart doctor. My cholesterol was off the charts. One of the doctors stated to my mother in an accusing tone, "Your daughter is liable to have a heart attack within the next two years at these levels of results." I also had chronic pain in my lower back, no formal sports or exercise routine, and loved to read for hours at a time, nestled in my bed.
We then went on the education and guidance journey with dieticians, nutritionists, and a with a calorie counting book found in every grocery store and pharmacy. I was taught to do sit ups for protecting my lower back, and taught to do jumping jacks and jump rope for cardio exercise. I had to keep a food diary daily for years. From age twelve to fourteen, I lost forty pounds and grew eight inches. I memorized the calorie counting values assigned to each food in that little book. It was like a bible to me.
Fast forward forty years. Time, in its steady and unapologetic way, shifted the conversation. The goalposts moved. Suddenly it wasn’t about thigh gaps or flat stomachs—it was about gravity, wondering when everything started heading south and if there was any way to politely ask it to stop. My social circle traded in our obsession with the scale for a new kind of vigilance: posture, strength, the quiet panic of a sneeze that requires strategic planning. Our mammaries, once scrutinized for size, seemed to be in a slow migration downward towards the knees. And the pelvic floor? No one warned us it would one day demand as much attention as our waistlines once did. My girlfriends, female cousins, and I joked about these issues to cover up our internal fear.
Fast forward ten more years. Even that phase, with all its indignities and humor, didn’t last forever. If we’re lucky, truly lucky, something softer begins to take root. The urgency fades. The constant self-evaluation and self-deprecation loosens its grip. We begin to see our bodies less as problems to fix and more as miraculous companions that have carried us—through love, loss, childbirth, heartbreak, body break, healing, and everything in between. The lines, the softness, the changes I resisted for so long at the beginning of my life started to feel like markings of a life actually lived, not one spent chasing approval. I was able to guide others towards their better selves with my personal experiences and lessons learned from them.
And then, almost unexpectedly, peace arrived. Not the loud, triumphant kind, but a quiet acceptance that settled in my bones, literally and figuratively. With eight major surgeries, replaced body parts, and titanium and steel as my new BBFs (body's best friends), I began to appreciate my body not as a project, but as an artistic vessel—imperfect, evolving, and deeply human. I moved differently, thought differently, and even looked at myself in the mirror differently. The flaws did not disappear, but they lost their power. What remained is something far more valuable: a sense of home within myself. After all those years of striving, that might have been the most beautiful transformation of all. I loved myself into a better existence.
I invite you to do the same. Love yourself into a better existence, whatever that means to you.
In Gratitude,
KJ Landis
@superiorself on Instagram and X
@SuperiorSelf channel on YouTube
@superiorselfwithkjlandis on TikTok
[email protected]
Books available everywhere!
My mother put me on the same diets she tried as an adult, garnished from magazines and not from the doctors' office. On the flip side of that, food equaled love in my family. I was loved a lot. If we kids ate our entire meal, we were given a reward of dessert, at every meal. For each "A" made on our report card, we earned either a dime or a trip to the ice cream and candy store. Love, food, education, and status within the family were all too muddled. At age twelve, my mother took me to an endocrinologist, a nutritionist, and a heart doctor. My cholesterol was off the charts. One of the doctors stated to my mother in an accusing tone, "Your daughter is liable to have a heart attack within the next two years at these levels of results." I also had chronic pain in my lower back, no formal sports or exercise routine, and loved to read for hours at a time, nestled in my bed.
We then went on the education and guidance journey with dieticians, nutritionists, and a with a calorie counting book found in every grocery store and pharmacy. I was taught to do sit ups for protecting my lower back, and taught to do jumping jacks and jump rope for cardio exercise. I had to keep a food diary daily for years. From age twelve to fourteen, I lost forty pounds and grew eight inches. I memorized the calorie counting values assigned to each food in that little book. It was like a bible to me.
Fast forward forty years. Time, in its steady and unapologetic way, shifted the conversation. The goalposts moved. Suddenly it wasn’t about thigh gaps or flat stomachs—it was about gravity, wondering when everything started heading south and if there was any way to politely ask it to stop. My social circle traded in our obsession with the scale for a new kind of vigilance: posture, strength, the quiet panic of a sneeze that requires strategic planning. Our mammaries, once scrutinized for size, seemed to be in a slow migration downward towards the knees. And the pelvic floor? No one warned us it would one day demand as much attention as our waistlines once did. My girlfriends, female cousins, and I joked about these issues to cover up our internal fear.
Fast forward ten more years. Even that phase, with all its indignities and humor, didn’t last forever. If we’re lucky, truly lucky, something softer begins to take root. The urgency fades. The constant self-evaluation and self-deprecation loosens its grip. We begin to see our bodies less as problems to fix and more as miraculous companions that have carried us—through love, loss, childbirth, heartbreak, body break, healing, and everything in between. The lines, the softness, the changes I resisted for so long at the beginning of my life started to feel like markings of a life actually lived, not one spent chasing approval. I was able to guide others towards their better selves with my personal experiences and lessons learned from them.
And then, almost unexpectedly, peace arrived. Not the loud, triumphant kind, but a quiet acceptance that settled in my bones, literally and figuratively. With eight major surgeries, replaced body parts, and titanium and steel as my new BBFs (body's best friends), I began to appreciate my body not as a project, but as an artistic vessel—imperfect, evolving, and deeply human. I moved differently, thought differently, and even looked at myself in the mirror differently. The flaws did not disappear, but they lost their power. What remained is something far more valuable: a sense of home within myself. After all those years of striving, that might have been the most beautiful transformation of all. I loved myself into a better existence.
I invite you to do the same. Love yourself into a better existence, whatever that means to you.
In Gratitude,
KJ Landis
@superiorself on Instagram and X
@SuperiorSelf channel on YouTube
@superiorselfwithkjlandis on TikTok
[email protected]
Books available everywhere!
RSS Feed