I am turning 30 this year and with a glamorous age, comes wisdom and self acceptance.
As you can tell by my age, I was a kid of the 90's and a teen of the early 2000's. Social media and smart phones were non-existent. This meant that I didn't have flawless Instagram models at my fingertips daily. I grew up with Lizzie Macguire and Tapanga Lawrence on TV. I didn't even have the best internet access either. Dial-up was slow and I only had the internet at school, and most of my free time was spent playing outside in some imaginary world. Anyway, body image wasn't an issue for me as a kid. I was also a very awkward scrawny child with sticks for legs and arms and buck teeth, until puberty happened. I gained a huge ass, my boobs grew over night, and my hips and thighs popped out of thin air, hence, my many many stretch marks and cellulite on theses portions of my anatomy.
I remember the first time I noticed stretch marks on my thighs at the age of 13, and I was so confused because I thought only women who had children had stretch marks. It didn't bother me until I was 19. This was when I started reading magazines, watching the "E!" channel, and receiving Victoria's Secret catalogs. I saw that these amazonian goddesses were perfectly proportioned. No cellulite or stretch marks on their thing legs, and they were always the "perfect" bronze tone. Along with my stretch marks on my thighs and ass, I now started paying attention to my cellulite and non-toned abs. Oh, and I also started nit-picking my short legs, thick thighs, and pale as fuck skin. All of the above were what I considered my "FLAWS".
I started looking into fitness magazines that had headlines like "workouts to eliminate cellulite"; "workouts to slim your thighs"; "Foods to flatten your tummy"... I also spent some time in a tanning (cancer) bed (until I was 20 when I found out it actually caused cancer. I was quick to accept the fact that I had fair skin after that). I was overloaded with insecurities and tried to fix the impossible because I allowed the media to make me feel terrible about the physiological changes that happened to my body during puberty and my non-sun kissed.
(I had no idea what Photoshop was or that it even existed. So...To those who used photoshop to create unrealistic expectations of female beauty, F*** YOU!!! If you haven't seen the documentary "Killing Us Softly", do it!)
About the age of 21, I hit my highest I weight. Not at any point in my life did I consider myself fat, I was just uncomfortable in my skin. When my upper arms stopped fitting comfortably in my work attire, that's when I started becoming insecure about my weight. I didn't workout like I do now, and I had binge eating issues with sugar. I attempted working out, but wasn't be consistent with it, and I tried eating healthy, but I had no clue what I was doing and I couldn't get a handle on my sugar issue.
This went on and on until February of 2012 when I was on the verge on turning 25. I decided I was going to make health and fitness work for me with a home workout DVD and a no bullshit vegan diet. Thank you, infomercials and "The Kind Diet"! Yes, this started because I wanted to see the pounds drop and some external changes happen, but something even more magical happened after about 3 weeks of consistently working out to the same DVD and eating like I actually gave a shit about all my organs...I stopped receiving VS catalogs, buying magazines, and giving a shit about my flaws and felt some magical shit happen mentally and internally. I felt f****** empowered and the healthiest I have ever been mentally and physically. I've even completed 3 mud runs in the past couple years and even took 3rd place in the 3 male:1 female coed division.
All that magical shit is why I workout and eat like I care. I don't do it because I hate my body. I do it because I love my body and every damn cell its composed of.
My happy-fit-self love journey and understanding of the human body hasn't just allowed me to accept my "flaws", ...I realized they weren't flaws to begin with. They are the physiological processes of being a female human.
.
As you can tell by my age, I was a kid of the 90's and a teen of the early 2000's. Social media and smart phones were non-existent. This meant that I didn't have flawless Instagram models at my fingertips daily. I grew up with Lizzie Macguire and Tapanga Lawrence on TV. I didn't even have the best internet access either. Dial-up was slow and I only had the internet at school, and most of my free time was spent playing outside in some imaginary world. Anyway, body image wasn't an issue for me as a kid. I was also a very awkward scrawny child with sticks for legs and arms and buck teeth, until puberty happened. I gained a huge ass, my boobs grew over night, and my hips and thighs popped out of thin air, hence, my many many stretch marks and cellulite on theses portions of my anatomy.
I remember the first time I noticed stretch marks on my thighs at the age of 13, and I was so confused because I thought only women who had children had stretch marks. It didn't bother me until I was 19. This was when I started reading magazines, watching the "E!" channel, and receiving Victoria's Secret catalogs. I saw that these amazonian goddesses were perfectly proportioned. No cellulite or stretch marks on their thing legs, and they were always the "perfect" bronze tone. Along with my stretch marks on my thighs and ass, I now started paying attention to my cellulite and non-toned abs. Oh, and I also started nit-picking my short legs, thick thighs, and pale as fuck skin. All of the above were what I considered my "FLAWS".
I started looking into fitness magazines that had headlines like "workouts to eliminate cellulite"; "workouts to slim your thighs"; "Foods to flatten your tummy"... I also spent some time in a tanning (cancer) bed (until I was 20 when I found out it actually caused cancer. I was quick to accept the fact that I had fair skin after that). I was overloaded with insecurities and tried to fix the impossible because I allowed the media to make me feel terrible about the physiological changes that happened to my body during puberty and my non-sun kissed.
(I had no idea what Photoshop was or that it even existed. So...To those who used photoshop to create unrealistic expectations of female beauty, F*** YOU!!! If you haven't seen the documentary "Killing Us Softly", do it!)
About the age of 21, I hit my highest I weight. Not at any point in my life did I consider myself fat, I was just uncomfortable in my skin. When my upper arms stopped fitting comfortably in my work attire, that's when I started becoming insecure about my weight. I didn't workout like I do now, and I had binge eating issues with sugar. I attempted working out, but wasn't be consistent with it, and I tried eating healthy, but I had no clue what I was doing and I couldn't get a handle on my sugar issue.
This went on and on until February of 2012 when I was on the verge on turning 25. I decided I was going to make health and fitness work for me with a home workout DVD and a no bullshit vegan diet. Thank you, infomercials and "The Kind Diet"! Yes, this started because I wanted to see the pounds drop and some external changes happen, but something even more magical happened after about 3 weeks of consistently working out to the same DVD and eating like I actually gave a shit about all my organs...I stopped receiving VS catalogs, buying magazines, and giving a shit about my flaws and felt some magical shit happen mentally and internally. I felt f****** empowered and the healthiest I have ever been mentally and physically. I've even completed 3 mud runs in the past couple years and even took 3rd place in the 3 male:1 female coed division.
All that magical shit is why I workout and eat like I care. I don't do it because I hate my body. I do it because I love my body and every damn cell its composed of.
My happy-fit-self love journey and understanding of the human body hasn't just allowed me to accept my "flaws", ...I realized they weren't flaws to begin with. They are the physiological processes of being a female human.
.
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