Hi Ladies!
This is a bit of an essay, but lately I've been thinking a lot about the pressure brides get about looking good on their wedding day and I have a few thoughts that I wanted to share. I saw a pair of leggings in a sports store that said "Sweating for the Wedding" and it really irked me. I really hate that women are bombarded from a very young age with the idea that our self-worth is based on how our bodies look. The expectations from society, from the diet industry, and from the fitness industry are just so warped and completely unrealistic. Like any other woman of any other size, I have struggled (and still do sometimes) with my body image, but I started trying to appreciate my body and get on board with the body positivity movement.
One of the biggest take home messages for me with respect to body positivity is that I don’t need anyone else`s permission to love my body. I don`t need permission from society, I don't need permission from the diet or fitness industry, and I don`t need permission from my partner. I have a good body - we all have good bodies - and It`s ok for me to love my body, right now, exactly as it is, without changing anything. My body can do incredible things. It allows me to do so many things that I enjoy like walk my dog, hug my fiancé, go to work, talk to my friends... If I focus on all of the amazing ways I use my body every day, how it looks is basically irrelevant.
Another concept that I think is so vital for people to understand is that healthy has a different definition for everyone. You cannot judge a person`s level of health based on the size or shape of their body. Health encompasses so much more than what I look like on the outside – it’s also how I feel physically, mentally, and emotionally and it can change from day to day or even from hour to hour. I like to exercise, but that doesn`t make me better than someone who doesn`t. I still have lots of jiggly areas. I have rolls on my tummy and I’ll never have a thigh gap, but that is ok because that is how my body is put together. It does not have any reflection on my overall health or my worth as a person. This is how my body looks when I am enjoying a life of balance. Maybe I don’t meet the criteria for an idealized body, but I meet the criteria for an idealized me. And overall, I’m the one who has to deal with being me every day. And I want to be the happiest, healthiest version of myself.
So when I work out I'm not "sweating for the wedding", I'm sweating for me.