Body Positivity. Body Positivity. Body Positivity.
I have been looking forward to writing this post. That may sound weird but it is just something that I needed to get out my head and share.
I have struggled a lot with body image over the years. I’ve always had a battle with my weight, gaining and losing, gaining and losing. I remember feeling so insecure about it in high school and covering my stomach in pictures or being so relieved when I was pregnant with my daughter because it meant I didn’t have to hold my stomach in in pictures anymore.
This battle has continued my whole life. In the last few years I gained weight in a way that I could tell it was starting to affect my health. So in 2018, I started the keto diet and lost 46lbs (talked about it a bit here). I felt amazing. Not simply because I looked different but because I had so much more energy and health issues started to dissipate. I felt like a new person.
But…
I fell off the wagon again and gained it all back and then some. This not only started to take a toll on my physical health but my mental health too. I started to beat myself up over not being able to stick with things and being really sad about how good I felt before and how horrible I felt now. Then I think I started giving up on the mirror. Not really wanting to see what I looked like, knowing it was far off from the idea I had of myself.
That was the thing. It wasn’t even all about how other people saw me… it was about how I wanted to see myself.
Then it came time to restart this blog …and I put it off and put it off because I was soooo extremely uncomfortable knowing I would have to be photographed. The picture in my head didn’t match the body on the camera screen.
I knew I had to do it though and in order to do that I knew I needed a different outlook. I had to stop thinking about myself the way I was and just lean towards self-acceptance. It took a lot of positive self talk to get started and take the pictures and start the blog and just accept the person I saw.
This is what I told myself.
Look at you. This is who you are, right now, today. You will likely lose the weight again and it will be good for your health but in the meantime you need to love the body that helps you live every day. Be smitten by the body that brought your child into the world. Be thankful for the body that walks and talks and hugs and holds, that houses the brain that thinks, the heart that loves, and the soul that feels. You are where you are meant to be. You are who you are meant to be.
…and so now you guys see me. How I am. Posting photos. Enjoying making content. Meeting so many new and wonderful people …and just being happy.
Far worse things could happen to my body than having a bit more of it and so I am learning every day to love more and more, every single inch.
