Jen Larsen on Being Skinny and Happy and Why They Aren’t Related

When I’m having a rough day at work or my boyfriend makes me mad or I’m feeling left out or my bank account is looking sparse, I think to myself, “Man. If I were just 20 pounds thinner, none of this would be getting to me.” Okay, so that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but there have certainly been times when I’ve thought my happiness is dependent on my weight. Doesn’t everybody think that every now and then?At 300 pounds, Jen Larsen could relate. Before getting weight loss surgery, her doctor said,

After the surgery, Jen would go on to lose 180 pounds over the course of a year and a half.

What Jen didn’t lose with the weight was the emotional and psychological stress that had come with being 300 pounds. Those things didn’t go away when she was one day able to fit into a size 2. She still felt depressed and couldn’t understand why she still felt depressed, “despite the fact that the one thing I thought had been ruining my life was suddenly gone.”

And while Jen (who has written a book about her weight loss journey called Stranger Here) may still be sorting those things out, she does have a little advice (which, thankfully, doesn’t include Cosmo-style anecdotes):

Featured image courtesy of Refinery29