Health and Self Image

Today on FB, a friend posted a pic of a super skinny chick, wearing underwear, posing in her kitchen drinking a cup of coffee.   I cracked a joke of "i bet that's her whole caloric intake for the day".

What happened next really caught me off guard.   People TRASHED me!

I received comments like the following:
"i'm ok with that [her only drinking coffee as fuel]"
"you're a horrible, judgemental ugly person" etc etc.

To be honest, I was kind of shocked.  In fact, one guy was so aggressively pissed off at me for saying that, I was forced to block him. (anger management might need to kick in).  Of course, he wanted to defend his right to oogle a hot chick without being made to feel guilty about it (this was not my friend, a friend of his)

I know there are women in the world, who've won the genetic lottery and are lucky enough to have the model physique.  I don't hate them.  I respect that they're given that ability. I respect them the same way someone is a natural athlete, or musician, or vocalist.

Some of us aren't that lucky. I am not that lucky. 

Since i was 13, i chased that image for myself.  I dieted, restricted my diet, gone on extremely unhealthy diets, and worked out like crazy. (I never resorted to vomiting because it's just makes me gag to think of that.)

Society sold me images of skinny girls who were popular. You can't escape it, esp as a young girl.  It's everywhere...tv, magazines, movies, music.  Men don't have a chance. They're told from the beginning..this is what is acceptable for love, and this isn't.

Now, that i've grown older, I try to focus more on health.   A friend tipped me to read Cameron Diaz's book on body. Well sure, she won the genetic lottery, but she wrote about her bad food habits, and what that cost her.

It's a book about how food is our friend and health should be priority, and the rest will follow.   I wish i had had this book when i was a young girl.  Maybe when my first boyfriend said to me "you'd be so hot if you'd lose 15 pounds", I would have been strong enough to tell him to go pound sand. Back then, skinny was everything. If you were fat, you weren't worthy of love.

Luckily, a lot of this is changing. Curves are slowly making their way back into acceptance. 

If you have a young person in your life, who is struggeling with self image, OR if you have ANY friend who is, should pick up this book. I thought for the most part, that I ate healthy, but this really brought into focus areas of my life i could improve upon. It's not a magic cookbook, and it's a workout program. It's just information about how our bodies work.

Food should be viewed as Fuel, but we're not really taught that growing up.  Fat is NOT your enemy. Being big is not someone's excuse to be rude to you.  

My BF is always supporting me by saying "focus on being stronger, faster and healthy, the rest will fall into place".  

Try putting goals in your path that are reachable: "running a half marathon" "riding 3 hour bike ride". "Swimming 1/4 mile" Whatever is is..even if it's just surviving that aerobics class 3x a week.   

Learn to fuel yourself to be the healthy, amazing you. Because YOU are amazing and you are beautiful.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Clear Skies.