Letting Go of Who You Thought You Were Supposed to Be

Hey there. At some point in your 30’s or 40’s, especially if you have been on a weight loss journey for years, you may look around and quietly think, this is not where I thought I would be.

Maybe you thought you would have reached a certain number on the scale by now. Maybe you believed that once you lost the weight, confidence would automatically arrive. Maybe you assumed that by this age, you would finally feel at peace in your own body.

And yet here you are. Still working on it. Still thinking about it. Still navigating it.

There is a version of you that you once imagined.

That version probably looked leaner, more disciplined, more certain. Maybe they woke up at 5 a.m. every day without hesitation. Maybe they never stress ate. Maybe they had a perfect workout routine and a perfectly organized life. You built that image over years of comparison, marketing, social media, and the subtle message that you were not good enough as you were.

If you have spent much of your life trying to change your body, it makes sense that you also built an identity around who you were supposed to become.

But what if part of your growth now requires letting that version go?

Not in a defeated way. Not in a give up on your goals way. But in a grounded, honest, compassionate way.

When I talk about the inside/out approach, I am talking about building from self connection instead of self rejection. If your entire fitness journey has been fueled by the belief that you were not enough, then even progress will feel hollow. You can hit the goal weight and still feel behind.

Letting go of who you thought you were supposed to be might involve mourning that imagined life. It might involve acknowledging that your twenties were different than expected. That your body has changed. That your energy is not what it once was. That your priorities have shifted.

You are allowed to grieve the path you thought you would take.

But you are also allowed to appreciate the path you survived.

If you look back at the last ten or fifteen years, you have navigated more than you give yourself credit for. Career shifts. Relationship changes. Health scares. Family responsibilities. You kept going. You adapted. You learned.

That matters more than a single body fat percentage.

Fitness is still important. I believe deeply in strength training, cardio, moving your body consistently. I believe in structured routines and having a plan. But if the foundation of all of that is self criticism, you will always feel like you are chasing a moving target.

The inside/out process asks a different question.

Who are you now, and how can you build from here?

Instead of obsessing over the version of you that never quite materialized, what if you focused on loving and appreciating the person in the mirror today. Not in a delusional way. Not in a fake positivity way. But in a mature, honest way.

You have survived.

You have grown.

You are still here.

We live in a culture that constantly pulls us into nostalgia. Memories pop up on social media. You see pictures from your twenties and think, I looked better then. You replay old milestones and wonder where you went wrong. But you cannot build a meaningful future if you are living in comparison to your past.

Appreciate your past. Learn from it. Then let it inform your next decision instead of defining your worth.

This applies beyond fitness. It applies to your career. To relationships. To friendships that faded. To dreams that evolved. You are not required to be the same person you were ten years ago. Growth often means shedding old identities.

And that can feel uncomfortable.

But the alternative is living in quiet regret.

I do not want you to regret your life. I want you to move at a deliberate pace from a calm headspace. I want you to go after strength goals, body composition changes, business ideas, relationship improvements, all of it, from a place of self respect instead of self punishment.

You were never not good enough.

The weight loss journey was never about fixing a broken person. It was about learning how to care for yourself in a sustainable way. The moment you stop chasing validation and start building from within is the moment your fitness becomes sustainable.

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