Does This Couch Make Me Look Fat?
Growing up in a big family meant two things: there was always noise, and there was always food. We didn’t have much money, but we had an abundance — in spirit, in chaos, and definitely in portions. A serving of spaghetti in our house could feed a small village. Seconds were an unspoken rule; thirds were a sign of appreciation. Food was love, laughter, and sometimes the only thing we could afford to be generous with.
By the time I hit high school, I had already begun my lifelong dance with weight. Sometimes I led, sometimes it did. I tried to shrink myself into smaller jeans, into smaller versions of myself, and into ideas of beauty that were never made for big-hearted, big-bodied women. However, the truth is that most of my weight gain occurred later, in my 20s and beyond. Life has a way of layering itself on us — experience by experience, emotion by emotion, bite by bite.
The Furniture Store Revelation
Years ago, I sat down in a furniture store — the kind where everything looks a little too staged, as if no one with a human body actually lives there — and I caught my reflection in the mirror. The couch pattern beneath me somehow made me look… larger. And then I thought, “Wait. Does this couch make me look fat?”
I laughed out loud, realizing how absurd that question was. I wasn’t wearing the couch — I was sitting on it. But the thought lingered because it mirrored something deeper: the ways I’d been trained to see myself through the wrong lens, as if the world around me determined my worth, my size, or my beauty.
And the truth is, we do get that message — over and over — in our society. How others see us, how we’re perceived, is the measure of our success or worth. It’s a quiet conditioning that seeps in until one day you catch yourself questioning not just your reflection, but your value.
The Long Road Through Diets and Decisions
Like so many of us, I’ve done the diets, the detoxes, the promises whispered by late-night infomercials. Eventually, I turned to lap band surgery — a choice made from a place of hope, but also of exhaustion. And when the band had to be removed years later, I found myself right back in the most uncomfortable seat of all: my own body.
I had to learn, again and again, that self-love is not a finish line. It’s a practice — messy, imperfect, and sometimes full of snacks.
And even though I’d said I loved myself, I hadn’t always felt it deep within. I’ve learned that self-love is truly an inside job — but what do you do when you find that inner love and still long for outer success or physical change? Can you look at yourself with love and compassion and still feel the ache of wanting your body to move through the world with more ease?
Inner love is powerful, but it doesn’t cancel out the truth that carrying extra weight can be physically hard. It’s heavy — literally and energetically. And loving myself has meant holding space for both: the spiritual acceptance and the human desire for relief.
What Am I Waiting For? Me!
For the last fifteen years, I’ve studied Tantra — the sacred art of being fully alive. I’ve touched moments of deep awareness, bliss, even transcendence. I’ve cried, meditated, chanted, and taught others how to connect with the divine within.
And still, the weight remained.
It’s humbling, isn’t it? To awaken spiritually, yet still wrestle with the human body and all its hungers, not the least of which is food.
For a long time, I thought my inability to “solve” my weight meant I wasn’t as evolved as I should be. But over time, I came to realize something profound — my weight wasn’t my enemy; it was one of my biggest teachers (pun fully intended).
It taught me humility, patience, and compassion. It taught me to listen to my body’s truth instead of the noise of society. It taught me that transformation doesn’t always look like a smaller waistline — sometimes it looks like a bigger heart.
This isn’t a new realization. I’ve met this lesson before — just wearing different clothes. I’ve met it in yoga classes, in therapy rooms, on long desert walks, and at the bottom of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
Each time I thought I’d finally “figured it out,” life smiled and whispered, “Go deeper.” The awareness wasn’t new — just layered. Like sediment, each round of insight settled into something truer.
I used to think awareness was a lightbulb moment. Now I know it’s a sunrise — slow, repeating, beautiful every single time.
The Code — The Elimination Code — has always been about that. Not just losing weight, but losing illusion. Eliminating what blocks the flow of life. And the truth is, it’s both. It’s not about losing weight — but it’s not not about losing it either. The extra weight does block parts of my life flow, not the least of which is my ability to move with ease. My journey with weight has been the same — not about subtraction, but revelation. Each time I circled back to this theme, it was like another lion’s roar echoing across the savannah of my life, saying, “Look again. There’s more truth underneath this layer.”
The Science and the Weight of it All
Recently, after much soul-searching, I decided to begin a new chapter: a weekly shot of the newest prescription for weight loss. Even saying that feels a bit like confessing a secret. A part of me feared it meant giving up — that after all my spiritual work, I was taking the easy way out.
But the truth is, there’s nothing easy about making this decision — or any decision I’ve made on this journey with weight. It’s all been hard in one way or another. And yet, I found myself wondering: but what if it actually was easy? Would that really be so bad? This has been one of the hardest parts of my life. Maybe I could go for a little easy with it.
The judgment about “the easy way” is so curious, isn’t it? We never say that to someone who gets to work earlier because they found a shortcut. No one says, “Sure, you got here quicker, but it doesn’t count — you took a shortcut.”
So if this ends up being easier, I’m all for it.
But then I remembered what Tantra had always taught me: to listen to the body. My body was calling me to say yes again.
I remember the girl who used to sneak food late at night, not because she was hungry, but because she didn’t want to be found. I remember the woman years later, sitting in a doctor’s office, signing the consent for lap band surgery, believing control would finally bring peace. And now here I am — holding a tiny syringe once a week, not in punishment, but in partnership with my body. It’s not new awareness. It’s the same river, flowing clearer.
That Word
I’ve always shuddered at the word obesity — it sounds clinical, detached, not personal or human, even, not the full story.
And then, some years back, they added morbidly obese.
Morbidly obese? Really? Do you know what the actual definition of morbid is?
“Characterized by an unusual interest in disturbing and unpleasant subjects, especially death and disease.”
So apparently, my medical chart was saying I’m not only an unpleasant subject, but I have an unusual fascination with being fat — and death. As if I were sitting around twirling my fork over a bowl of pasta, thinking, “You know what’s fun? A little mortality with my marinara.”
It’s almost comical, except it isn’t. Words like that cut deep. They pathologize something already layered with shame, turning a body — my body — into a diagnosis instead of a life being lived.
And then more recently, the medical community upped the ante with super obese. Is that supposed to mean I’m doing an extraordinary job at it? Should I get a cape? Can I fly?
I decided to take it literally: if I’m “super obese,” then maybe I’m a superhero. A woman with special powers, after all, I’ve carried this body, this story, this study of weight and worth for decades. That’s strength. That’s stamina. That’s resilience.
But all kidding aside (well, maybe not all), I realized something: living, growing, and reinventing ourselves again and again does make us pretty special. My particular brand of special just happens to include my journey with weight.
Learning the science of obesity — superhero language aside — has been strangely liberating. Understanding how the brain and gut communicate, and how sometimes they don’t, has softened my shame and sparked more curiosity. It’s not all willpower and green smoothies. There’s real biology here. Real chemistry.A real human struggling against an inner biology miscommunication.
The Dreams (and the Laughs)
Early into my new medication journey, I noticed something both intense and hilarious: the dreams. Vivid, cinematic dreams that make you wake up laughing or sweating or wondering if your subconscious just threw a dinner party.
I’ve had dreams that feel like a scene from Inception. All because my body and brain are finally learning to speak a new language.
And in the daylight, something else is shifting too. I’m noticing how my hunger feels different. The volume is turned down on the inner chatter about food. My body is teaching me again, and the lack of food chatter makes it easier to listen.
My body knew long before my mind did. It spoke in whispers underneath the noise, fatigue, craving, resistance — long before I had language for compassion. It’s never been the enemy; it’s been the sage.
Loving the Body That Carries the Soul
I’m early in this new chapter, but what I know for sure is this: I am no longer waiting to love myself until I arrive somewhere else. Of course, that’s been true before the new medicine. This is the next level on the journey. I am proud of this body, the one that has carried me through grief, joy, pleasure, adventure, and awakening.
And for God’s sake, this body flew to Africa and trekked across the desert. It got stuck in a hole on a mountainside with my ass hanging off the edge and my feet dangling like Winnie the Pooh stuck in the rabbit’s hole. And, with my legs dangling in the wind I felt it all. Tears, shame, joy, frustration, and finally the sacredness of the moment. A simple yet hard shift in my perception occurred in that awareness of what was truly happening. Maybe I wasn’t so much stuck in that hole as I was being held. Suddenly, the panic lessened and I could breathe better and chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. Half in, half hanging out of a hole in a mountainside in Zimbabwe. So, with a shimmy and a shake, I stepped into the cave and into the arms of newfound loved ones and a fresh appreciation for Winnie the Pooh.
It was as if the Earth herself had me in an embrace, saying, “You belong here, all of you, even the parts you still want to hide.”
I came home lighter, not in pounds, but in the weight of self-judgment. And, of course, a great story.
I’ve done some pretty extraordinary things with this big body.
The number on the scale no longer tells my story, if it ever did. My story is told through laughter, through resilience, through the way I now see myself when I catch my reflection, not as too much, not as not enough, but as a woman profoundly human, still unfolding.
I’m not at the end of this journey, just another turn in the spiral. The awareness isn’t new. It’s the same truth I’ve met in a thousand mirrors, each time a little kinder, a little deeper, a little more mine.
Maybe this whole path, from couches to continents, from laughter to tears, has been leading me not to a smaller body, but to a fuller life.
So maybe the better question isn’t Does this couch make me look fat?
Maybe it’s Can I sit here, comfortably, joyfully, fully, and know that I belong?
And today, the answer is Yes...
Author’s Note
This story isn’t about couches, or even about weight, not really. It’s about the layers we carry and the ways we learn to lay them down.
For most of my life, I believed transformation had to look a certain way, smaller, neater, more in control. But every time I tried to wrestle myself into that version of “better,” life gently (and sometimes not so gently) invited me deeper. What I’ve come to understand is that healing isn’t linear. It’s circular, cyclical, and sometimes hilariously human.
This piece came from a moment of laughter, sitting in a furniture store, catching my reflection, and realizing how absurd and tender our relationship with our bodies can be. It’s a moment that carried both humor and truth, which, I think, is where real healing lives.
Does This Couch Make Me Look Fat? is not about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about learning to see myself, and invite others to see themselves, with more grace than judgment, more curiosity than control.
If my story reminds you to meet your own reflection with compassion, to laugh in the middle of your becoming, and to trust that your body is a teacher, not a test, then it has done its work.
With love, laughter, and a little Lionhearted courage,
Jennifer Mark
Creator of The Elimination Code