I See

I just finished watching Will Smith's Best Shape of my Life documentary on YouTube. I saw some other YouTubers commenting on the documentary and while they had a lot of negative things to say, I wanted to see for myself. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. For those that aren't familiar with it, the premise is that Will gained weight for a role before the pandemic, and gained even more after that. The documentary, which is broken up into 7 parts, is Will challenging himself to lose 20 pounds and finish his autobiography in 20 weeks. I love that they showed him reading parts of his book (which sounds amazing) and he talks a lot about his less-than-charmed childhood that makes him who he is. There is a personal trainer, nutritionist and psychiatrist at his disposal too. I really like the fact that there is a psychiatrist, she does a good job explaining Will's actions throughout, which is good because he might seem like a child sometimes and to me it doesn't make sense, but when it's explained it is suddenly clear. To be fair, he works hard most of the time. it's interesting to see what the first weigh-in does to his mood when he sees a gain instead of a loss. Throughout the documentary there are amazing gems of quotes. One that really struck me was, "How we decide to confront our fears, that is the person we become." The context of that is his father was abusive and Will's way that he tried to cope with that was to try and be funny because if his dad was laughing then everything was OK. It was really striking to me and made me examine how my own persona developed as an attempt to appease a mentally unwell mother. Will, as he is reading some of the book aloud to his family, seems to have come to terms with all of it. He didn't stay totally committed to either the training or the book, but got the book done in time and came close to meeting his weight goal. there were insane training schedules, sometimes 2 runs a day and also 2 strength training sessions a day and at one point he admits he only has 4 hours a day to sleep and sometimes he tries to fast to lose more weight. So not sustainable. In the end, it seems he realizes that challenges are fine but if they are unrealistic you can do more damage than good. Its easy to get trapped in the idea of pushing yourself to the limits but it it's not something you can keep up long-term then it's all just going to revert. I have heard people say that until you have a reason that truly matters to you, it's easy to let yourself off the hook, and our minds are designed to seek pleasure and avoid discomfort so trying to restrict and workout at a level where progress can be made, it against the nature of our brains. I will say I do feel inspired by watching it. in the last few minutes of the documentary they show his much-toned physique and I know he worked harder than I have worked toward the same goal in many years. I feel like his overall message is that just because you have a goal and a deadline you set for that goal, doesn't mean you don't grow if you don't hit the mark. That is something anyone trying to lose weight needs to be reminded of from time to time. I know I let the scale frustrate me the past few months and my mind started to feel like because I wasn't losing at a quick enough pace that I had failed or the diet wasn't right for me. It's in my DNA to give up when things don't go my way or when they get hard. Anyway I really liked the documentary and it inspired me to not only look at getting back on track but also thinking through some of those dark things from childhood that still get in my way. And I plan to read his book because it sounds so very good, I didn't know he was such a good writer. I have been letting myself partly off the hook this week but I know its never to late to heal, grow and move on.