Body Image
Where to start with Body Image? For most women, this topic has taken up a lot of brain space over the years. I will share my personal journey with my body image and how far I’ve come. I LOVE helping women (men too) feel better about their bodies!
Learning to hate my body started at a very young age. The women in my life; my dance teachers and family members, were highly critical of their own beautiful bodies. Women I loved and respected would squeeze their soft bits and say horrible things about themselves. They looked disapprovingly into the mirror at themselves and taught me that I wasn’t supposed to love my body no matter how good it looked.
As a girl – somehow the world has a license to comment on how you look. Watching movies and tv – the women around me would comment if someone looked heavy or admire them for having a tiny waist. I even received many comments on my own shape and size as a child and a teen. It felt really obvious that everyone noticed how I looked, if I had gained or lost weight and that it mattered.
Summer Camp
I remember going off to work at a summer camp all summer. I discovered bread baskets while I was there and gained 10 lbs over the 2 months at camp. When I came home my whole family teased me and called it the “camp tawingo tummy”. I felt ashamed of my body and the weight I had gained. When I look back – I was an athletic 5’9, 125 lbs. I gained 10 lbs – putting me up to only 135. I was still very healthy and lean, my body was still changing but I was SO aware that everyone could see every pound I gained.
Fast forward two more years, at 18 I was at 155 lbs (my current very healthy weight) and felt like I was massive. This is when I started working out (with no consistency), counting calories, and trying to remove all fat from my diet. My relationship with exercise and food-related 100% to how my body looked.
From this point on my weight went up and down, my gym habits went from extreme to nonexistent, and every calorie was counted. This wasn’t a healthy place to be. I wasted SO MUCH ENERGY hating my body – I look back at old pictures and wish the younger me would recognize the beauty and strength I had; youthful skin, less tired eyes, and a perfectly healthy body that just needed to be LOVED!
Exercise and Nutrition
Don’t get me wrong – I loved the way exercise made me feel and I always loved the sense of pride and strength I gained from my workouts. I learned more and more about nutrition and packed my diet full of delicious vegetables.
My relationship with food and exercise was not all bad. However, I felt insane amounts of guilt if I skipped a workout, gained a pound, or enjoyed a treat meal that knocked my daily calories over the ridiculously low limit I had set for myself.
Slowly after I became a personal trainer and yoga teacher I decided it was time to tackle the way I thought about my body – after all – how can I teach others to love and respect their bodies if I can’t lead the way.
Step 1
For me, step 1 was realizing that it was okay to like (or even love) my body. This was hard work! I had learned that you weren’t supposed to hate and criticize yourself. I finally adopted this philosophy: you’re not allowed to say bad things about your body (even in your head!), if you catch yourself doing it, replace whatever you said with something positive.
The rule is:
If you wouldn’t say it to someone else, you can’t say it to yourself. Next, accept the fact that with life’s ebbs and flows your ability to exercise and eat well will ebb and flow too. No one is “perfect” all the time, in fact, perfect isn’t sustainable (or any fun!). Give yourself grace during the challenging times in your life, and take advantage of those years that seem easy to keep it all up.
I used to be all or nothing all the time. Eat perfectly for weeks, eat a treat, and then go on a sugar binge. I would tell myself that because I had just “ruined everything” with the treat “I might as well keep going and start again Monday” (I know this sounds familiar to many of you…).
Sugar
Sugar is my drug of choice. When I finally stopped making the goal to never eat sugar again for the rest of my life, things really changed. I gave myself permission to enjoy 1-2 treats per week without guilt. With hard work, I changed my mindset on how I enjoyed food and treats.
Calories
I also finally realized that CALORIES AREN’T BAD. We need them to survive! I learned to enjoy and appreciate my food. Now I see FOOD AS FUEL TO CRUSH MY WORKOUTS and get through my very busy/long days with energy to spare. And guess what? When I do enjoy a treat or two I have no guilt and just go back to my normal routine. it’s so good to be free of guilt and shame around food.
Along this journey I changed my mindset on exercise as well, I finally learned:
EXERCISE IS NOT A PUNISHMENT FOR WHAT YOU ATE – IT IS A CELEBRATION OF WHAT YOUR BODY CAN DO!
My relationship with exercise finally changed and it became a reward, my “me time”. I finally realized that I deserved to feel great. That I deserved to age in a healthy way so that I can do anything I want when I am older. My parents are living the life in their retirement years because they have stayed fit their whole lives – I deserve to have that too!
As I practiced and taught this mindset to my clients, I really changed how I felt about myself. I watched my clients feel better in their own skin too. As women, we are constantly bombarded with messaging about how we need to look. My industry loves to tell women to get ready for bikini season – as we owe it to the world to look good – how about we owe it to ourselves to feel great and be healthy?
Create a mindset of a positive body image. Let us help you! Book a consult with one of our personal trainers today.