I find inspiration in many places. I hear a phrase or a word or two and my mind goes. It starts dropping the letters and then words into place. When I am in a good place writing, meaning when I feel a good blog post is coming together, I get emotional. I have to stand up and walk around. That’s my process. It feels. That’s just the way I do it. So today, there were a lot of letters and words that were falling and dropping into place, so here I am.

I was on a Peloton ride this morning. An endurance ride with Christine or CDE as she is known in the Peloton fandom. She definitely has a way with words. She strikes you in the throat with them. They just work. They make a person think and more importantly, feel. 

Most days I am fine with riding or walking on the tread and just want to “go through the motions.” I don’t want the life advice. I mean, I’m there. Leave me alone and just tell me what to do. Some days are different for me. Some days the emotions bubble to the surface. 

Lately, the last few weeks. Years ago. Now. Today. I don’t know. Who knows what is going to pull that trigger. It just does. A word, a phrase, something. The way it settles. The way it is said. 

My nutrition group is an integral part of my life and I do whatever I can to push them to get rid of the diet mentality and the all or nothing mindset. We try to kick that damn can down the street and look at lifestyle. There is no end to eating. There is no end to taking care of yourself.  Diets end. We don’t. 

For so many of my clients it’s hard to flip that switch. They have been turning that light on forever. It’s definitely a battleground. We look in the mirror and what do we see? My eyes. My body. My mirror. That is the battleground we walk on every single day. The between. Battling and loving. Battling and hating. It’s hard sometimes to love ourselves. Our worth is not tied to a number on the scale. Our worth is not tied to our size. It’s okay to want to change, but I want to be able to love myself through the battle. It takes a lot of time to get to I love me. So, so many people know this, but they aren’t there yet. They are still battling. It’s not about the pick ups. It’s about the get ups. We battle every single day to get through life. When we aren’t happy with ourselves, it makes it a helluva lot harder. So we work on ourselves. We show up everyday for the battle. 

Today’s ride was about loving ourselves. Respecting ourselves. Being there for ourselves. Are you there yet? 

Goldilocks and the three diets.

We all know Goldilocks, right? The girl in the story with the three bears. Papa, Mama and Baby. Well, this Goldilocks is hanging out with the three diets. Moderation (Papa), Restriction (Mama) and Just Right (baby). 

Goldilocks woke up one day and noticed that her clothes didn’t fit anymore and she looked fat. She didn’t like at all how she looked and she thought it was high time she did something about it. She had heard of so many different diets, so she decided to try to lose weight with moderation. Papa Bear’s diet. Moderation should be easy. She could still eat whatever she wanted and she could eat all the foods she loved whenever she wanted. She just needed to eat moderately. Whatever that meant.  

How could it go wrong? She ate all the foods. She tried to moderate. Goldilocks found out that she really couldn’t moderate her food very well. The potato chips she loved turned into eating the whole bag. The cookies turned into dozens. She couldn’t stop herself from eating them. She didn’t know what was wrong. She just wasn’t sure how moderation was really supposed to work. She didn’t feel hungry a lot of the time and she ate until she thought she was going to burst. She wasn’t sure what portion sizes were and how big they should be. She had never kept track of her food before, so she wasn’t sure how much she was actually eating. This went on for several months and she started gaining more weight and her clothes were even tighter. She decided the Papa Bear diet (moderation) was “too big.” 

Next up, Goldilocks come to Mama Bear’s diet (restriction). This diet was 1200 calories a day. Goldilocks set up a food tracking app. She was going to track everything she ate and keep her calories at 1200. She could do this. She was ready. But Goldilocks had to go to the store and stock up on “diet” food because because this diet started on Monday and she needed different foods to eat. She needed good food, not bad food. She also stocked up on cookies and cake and licorice and candy and pre-made cold brew latte drinks, because this diet started on Monday and she didn’t want to feel deprived or miss her favorite foods. She ate so much she felt sick. She had to eat all the food and drink all the drinks because this diet was limiting her food and also the kinds of foods she could eat. She needed to prepare. She had to get it out of her system. Monday was the day. The first few days were great. But then Goldilocks started thinking about food constantly. She started thinking about what she was missing. Her sleep was crappy and her workouts made her so tired. She was always hungry. She was afraid to go over her calories and macros because then she felt like a failure. Saturday came around and Goldilocks said screw it. She went to Taco John’s. Then she went and bought two bottles of wine. Then she went to Dairy Queen and got a Blizzard. She told herself Monday was it. Monday was Day 1, again. After about six months of Day 1s, Goldilocks was sick and tired of it and knew she needed to do something else. Mama Bear’s diet (restriction) was “too small.” 

Goldilocks did her research and now knew what portion sizes looked like and she started tracking her macros, concentrating on protein because she wanted to preserve her muscle, because muscle is longevity. She made sure she was eating enough food, but still able to lose weight. Goldilocks did this for a few months and started to feel really good. She was glad she did the Papa Bear diet and the Mama Bear diet because that helped her to figure out what to do now. Once she felt like she had a good grasp of her food, she started to feel less pressure. She knew that if she overate one day, or one meal, if she got right back to tracking the next meal, she would be fine. She finally realized that she couldn’t mess it up. She was happy and she was feeling strong and energetic. She felt alive and she felt like she could do anything. She developed patience and knew this wasn’t an end. It was a beginning for her. Goldilocks knew the Baby Bear diet was just right for her. She knew that because she was tracking her food and learning about food, this was becoming a way of life for her. Goldilocks knew her ultimate goal would be to eat without tracking, but for now this way of eating was just right for her. Goldilocks stuck with the Baby Bear (just right) diet and continued to see progress with her weight, strength and overall health. Baby Bear’s (just right) diet was just right. 

Flaws, scars and imperfections

We are told we aren’t skinny enough. We are told we aren’t pretty enough. We’ve heard the -she would be so pretty if she just lost weight -comment. It’s been with us forever. It’s blasted on social media. It’s ingrained in us and has been forever. 

I distinctly remember in 5th or 6th grade thinking I was fat. The school district started a lunch program where the kids could get the weight watchers lunch. Not the company WW, they just called it weight watchers as in watching your weight. Thanks. So not only then were we being fed the lie that we weren’t good enough and that we should be ashamed of our bodies, they decided to make us lunches to tell us. I can remember styrofoam cups of tuna and vegetables. And of course if you got that lunch you were weird and you must be fat. I have always been athletic and I have always had muscles. That was my body type. There was nothing wrong with it. 

It’s shoved down our throats and in our faces how imperfect and flawed we are. Well guess what, everyone is imperfect and everyone is flawed. Perfection is a fucking myth. So many women and I would bet men as well struggle with this. It’s sad to watch. I see it every single day in my coaching business. It’s hard to break through these perceptions. We have so many scars. 

I have struggled with binge eating, eating disorders, and body image issues all my life. It wasn’t until about the past year and half or so when I really got a good grasp on my self worth and decided it was time to let that shit go. It was time to see where I could go. It was time to work on me. And my working on me, I don’t mean just my body. I mean the whole me. The mental part of my perceptions about my body and my eating and my self. 

Our bodies are amazing. We only get one. That’s the beautiful part. We are all different. Why would we ever want to be the same as anyone else? What is wrong with ourselves that we are constantly comparing and doing something different, wanting something more, or just constantly wanting something else? We are constantly looking and searching. Turn inward and you will find all the answers you need. You always hold the key to that lock. You just need to turn it. 

So, I set out to turn my key. 

In the fitness and nutrition industry there is pressure to look a certain way. As a trainer I felt that pressure. I was overweight by a lot. I was still strong, but I just did not feel comfortable. It was time for a change. It was time for me to change. Not because of the pressures of the industry, but because I wanted to feel better. I wanted to be more healthy. I wanted to see what I could do.  My health was starting to suffer. My blood pressure was rising and I even went to the doctor because I thought for sure there was something wrong. 

Side note — This is another thing that can happen to us that maybe these professionals don’t realize they do. I got cholesterol shamed by a nurse (even though my doc said I was okay) and I got fat shamed by a doctor. By fat shamed I don’t mean I was told I was fat, but I got that look. You know the one where you say something and they look at you like you’re full of shit. That’s the look. No denying that. They really should check their facial expressions. 

I changed my channel. I started looking at things differently. I started being more positive. I started looking at what I could do. I started looking at how far I had come, not how much further I had to go – because in reality that never ends. This thing called life is here and now and as long as we get the privilege to be in it, we should take full advantage and live it. 

When you see the Instagram accounts of the perfect bodies and the perfect skin and hair, it’s smoke and mirrors. There is cellulite hiding behind the perfect light. There are pimples hiding behind the perfect makeup. Nobody is perfect. We all have flaws. We all have imperfections. That is okay and that is completely normal. We need to stop. We need to be real. We need to be okay with being real. We need to start to feel comfortable with being real. 

This pic of me shows stretch marks. It shows some loose skin from losing weight. The angle emphasizes that. I could have changed the angle. I could have air brushed the stretch marks out. But why? This is my body. I have worked hard for this body and this body has worked hard for me and together, we continue to work hard. It’s okay to want to look good. Make sure you are doing it for you and make sure you are working on the whole you, not just the body you. 

I had a big transformation, but it didn’t happen over night. I was in a calorie deficit for a long time. Then I went into a building phase where I gained back 10 pounds in hopes of adding more muscle to my frame. Then I lost again and am hanging out in this in between phase. I like the in between. It’s a good place to be right now. 

Start talking to your kids about body image. Help them understand that what they are seeing on social media and what is having a HUGE influence on them is not reality. You need to be their influence. Explain the importance of a healthy relationship with themselves and their body image. Start eating supper as a family. Start talking to them about food choices and how food affects their bodies. Sit down at the dinner table and talk about life. Talk about realities. Make sure your actions and words to yourself are positive.

Be positive. Your words are powerful and your brain listens to what you tell yourself. It’s okay to love yourself. That is a powerful thing. When trying to change, get in the journey and be present in that journey. You can do amazing things. 

Flaws and imperfections are good. To me they are not negative at all. We are all flawed. We are all imperfect. There is nothing wrong with us. I love my flaws and imperfections. I embrace them. I like being different.