Right now, perhaps always, body image is all the rage. Love your body, anti-body shaming, positive body image, get fit, be healthy, be a super fitness rockstar. This is all great, but when I read the posts, I feel kind of like I'm lost in the neutral zone between two camps on opposing sides.
Recently, I decided to get serious about my health. After 12 years of neglecting my body, two babies, and the realization that I was the heaviest member of my family, I'm ready to shed pounds and get healthy. I NEED to get healthy. My family history which includes heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, pretty much has dictated that. I'm finding me again (or still, maybe). I used to be crazy active, I played sports, rode bikes, ran, danced. I'm reigniting that passion I had for movement. After being bored to tears with a 90 day in home baby-step boot camp type workout, I found a fitness program that I genuinely love, and have been having a blast dancing around our playroom like a jackass while no one is looking. That is kind of beside the point. I love a lot of the fitness blogs that I've been reading. They're inspiring, they give me hope. They're honest, it won't be easy, but it will be worth it. It's really cool. I'm there, I'm on my way. Get healthy, be a better you, love who you will be... Fitness camp, camp #1.
Camp # 2 is the You are beautiful as you are camp. I get it. Truly, I do. Even at my heaviest, I felt beautiful, empowered and totally secure in my body. It took a long time to get there. Having children and realizing that my body grew these amazing creatures really, really, helped with that. Honestly, my body image was more distorted and self-hating when I was the picture of fitness because of the number that was on the jeans and dresses I wore.
I have felt more beautiful looking like this:
and this:
than I ever did when I looked like this:
So, Camp #2, I get you too and I have much love, BUT...
I sit here wondering, where do I belong and how do I give a voice to the people who are like me, if there are any. I love my body! I don't care that my belly looks like a rounded road map because of all of the stretch marks I've "earned" over the years. I love all of my plus size glory, and I don't give a flying you know what if anyone doesn't, but I'm rapidly changing my body to get healthy. Despite my acceptance, I'm seeking to change myself, and for the better. My new program, Yoga Booty Ballet, had a 7 Day Slim Down that I just completed and I lost 13 all over inches in 7 days! I was (and still am) pumped! My blood pressure at my last doctor's appointment was 117/76. I have lost 40 pounds in the last year. So I wonder, do casual observers who hang out on the fringe of my facebook life or the folks at church who don't know me that well, assume that I'm doing this because I don't accept or love my body? I feel like that is what camp #2 people might begin to think. "She must be doing this because she doesn't love herself." I'm seeking this change so I must not love my body as it is. Do camp #1 people feel like I have a place with them, because, after all, I just admitted that I loved my body at a scale tipping 314 pregnant pounds and love my body now that it is not as big, but still no where close to the girl you see in the last picture (who, just to let you know, was ALSO a plus size. That's right ladies and gentlefolk, that's a size 12-and a whole other blog post). I feel like a lot of times, that camp advocates for loving the person you will be in the future, after you've realized your fitness goals, but that you shouldn't love what you are now because you aren't done yet. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the impression I get sometimes.
So I am seeking the "neutral zone folks" I suppose, in a more public forum. I love the girls in my BeachBody Challenge closed group, they get it, and me, but I want to hear MORE from people like me, who both love their big, not so healthy bodies, but at the same time, are trying to be healthier with nutrition and exercise, not because they're trying to look pretty, skinny or stop hating themselves. Am I alone in these thoughts of feeling lost and floating out there between two groups? I don't know. I hope you'll let me know.
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