This Wellness Professional Is Coming Out as a Big Fat Fraud

Today I play the role of a business owner, a writer, a wife, and a mother. If you time-traveled into the past you’d see me playing a nerd, ¹ a goth, ² a butch, ³ a femme, ⁴ a poet, ⁵ a comedian, ⁶ a Christian, ⁷ an agnostic, ⁸, and a couple dozen other roles.

No matter who I was, or where I was, or what I was doing, it felt insincere. I felt like the fraud in a room full of genuine articles, whether they were rolling 10-sided dice or swapping verse or cracking jokes or begging forgiveness. I was a spy without a homeland. No matter how I was walking, I always felt like the shoes didn’t quite fit.

But I didn’t feel like a fraud when I was consuming. No sir. Food. Booze. Smokes. Romance. Drugs. TV. TJ Maxx. Taking things into my body or into my head helped me tune out the fraud thought, and the self-consciousness. So long as I was taking something – or someone – in, all was well.

That is, until it was gone. Until I woke up, or broke up, or got the bill, or had to show up for something.

I made sense of that in the only way I could: I decided that me was me consuming. At a young age I decided that not feeling was the real thing, and so I built my life around that.

And that’s how the rest of my life – work, commutes, errands, and obligations of any kind – became the stuff I went through – or had to get past – so I could have me time. I lived from snack to snack, and bottle to bottle. From ‘pleasure’ to ‘pleasure.’

The more I took in, the more uncomfortable it was to go without, until finally, one by one, my ‘pleasures’ broke. I couldn’t drink or smoke or eat my mind quiet anymore. I became more and more aware of the weird lengths I was willing to go to get a fix (of whatever), and that I didn’t stop consuming even when it became clear that it wasn’t bringing me nearly as much pleasure as pain.

Of course, me was never me consuming. Me consuming was just me distracted – distracted from my feelings of shame and of fraudulence and inadequacy, distracted from my disappointment with myself, and the life I wanted that I wasn’t creating. I had been mistaking the brief peace that cheap ‘pleasures’ brought me as my real life.

So if me consuming isn’t me, then what is? It’s not the clothes I wear or the games I play or the shows I watch. I’m not my sexuality or my political leanings or my hobbies. It’s not even my sense of humor or how I spend my time.

I’m a wellness-pushing personal trainer today, so you’re probably waiting for me to break out with “Me is me exercising!” or “Me is me eating well!”

Um, no.

I love exercising, specifically lifting weights. I love eating nourishing food. But here’s the kicker: I still feel like a fraud.

I’ve been exercising and eating well for years, and I’ve helped hundreds of people do the same, and still there’s a voice in my head, ready to remind me that I’m not the real thing; that me is a fat alcoholic smoker who’s not fooling anyone.

Making healthy, sustainable behavior change is a tall order for people like me. The tallest. Part of why it’s so easy for us to talk ourselves out of healthier behaviors is this fraud thought – this sense that no matter how hard we try, no matter how many times we go to Zumba, or how long we stay away from sugar, or fast food, or the bar, that the healthier behavior will never be us. We keep waiting to wake up feeling like the real thing, but when that doesn’t happen, we quit.

I’ve been a fit, healthy-living personal trainer for almost a decade, and I still don’t feel like the real thing. Maybe I never will. And that’s OK.

I’m a work in progress. How I look, what I think, what I believe in, and what I do with my body and my time – it’s all in flux. Because change is inevitable, I’ve concluded that me (and perhaps, you) is the one thing that remains constant: me breathing. Me is the breath I take while standing or sitting exactly where I am, no matter what I’m wearing, or where I’m working, or what brand of coffee I’m drinking. And because me is the breath I take – and my experience of that breath – I’ve dedicated my life to making choices so that that breath feels good.

I make choices so I can feel good in this breath, without needing to also be drinking or smoking or eating or whispering sweet nothings or Saving Big on Name Brand Styles.

Now that I know what me is, I have an easier time choosing healthier roles. I have a much easier time sticking to commitments ⁹ because I’ve made me – this breath and how it feels – my priority.

I imagine every other wellness professional out there is the genuine article. Me? I’m a fat alcoholic smoker, just playing a part.