I was sitting listening to a webinar on body image and it made me reflect on my past and how I use to treat my body. I have come a long way since my insecure years in high school/university. But what changed?
I have struggled with weight my whole life, I have always been small and on the low end of healthy….entering into unhealthy. I have been blessed with a fast metabolism but this does not mean I was happy. Every woman struggles with their body…prodding, poking and criticizing every second they get. Why can't I look like that supermodel, this is what I really want to look like. But is it really? Why do you want to look that way? Will it give you happiness? Will it make people love you more?
So what right do I have to tell you it isn't all about weight loss if I have never been over weight!
What I’m really trying to tell you is that mindset is the key to happiness. As soon as I shifted my mindset to loving my body for what it is I began to feel happy, content and even satisfied with who I am. I think I put too much energy into how I looked so I could have friends, love and achieve more. But my body wasn't the issue (even though I though it was for many years). It was all in my head, it was all about how I saw at myself.
Change your mindset, change your life.
So you just had a baby and you're thinking RIGHT, now its time to get my post baby body back. Well don’t waste the first weeks focusing on how to get your body back, you may never have the same body but that is OK! Life shouldn't revolve around losing weight if it’s just about getting smaller, that was a tough lesson I had to learn. No matter how small I got…nothing changed. I was still insecure, I still hated my body, I still struggled with liking myself. So why do you REALLY want to get smaller??
Lets shift the focus to why you should eat healthy and workout. Have a real conversation with yourself about what your motivation is, but try to stay away from visual body goals.
- You want more energy
- You want to be able to run after your toddler without feeling out of breath
- You want to glow from the inside out
- You want to prevent diseases that run in the family.
- You want to show a good example for your children.
- You want to FEEL GREAT!!
You created a life from NOTHING….thats amazing! Your body is capable of doing amazing things, you have to start loving it for what it can do. If you start to listen to your body and feed it what it really needs (both exercise and food) the weight loss will be a side effect. Mindfulness, moderation (although that word sucks lol) intuition, treat your body right. But eat that cookie too, its ok. Eat food because it nourishes the body, exercise because it gives you strength.
Have an even keel approach not a quick one time fix, slow and steady really does win the race.
Learning to look at yourself differently can be hard, but take small steps to make positive changes both physically and mentally. If it means unfollowing all the #fitmoms with their midriffs showing DO IT! Whatever makes you feel good about yourself. You are perfect, you grew a human from scratch!!
Happy workouts mamas!