Pi$$ed

Ok ok here it comes. A few of you expect it and a few of you wonder what the heck is wrong with me but I gotta tell you I am fired up right now.

I am so so so sick of all this distorted body image crap that is rampant. I do not understand why this stupid crap is going on in the age of technology in 2013. We are not stupid, we are not naive,  we absolutely know how the pictures, how the ads, how the tv works. They take a body (a male or female body) and they freaking change it. They freaking change it ok?!!?

The models do NOT look like that. I am in  a gym where they train fitness competitors year round, I have trained for a fitness competition  I KNOW personally what 13% body fat looks like on me and I know what 8-10% looks like on other women. These girls look freaking ripped out hot and better than any model in a magazine. You know what? If their trouble area is their butt, they still have cellulite. If their stomach is their trouble area, it is not all the way tight. When was the last time you saw a magazine with a model in it, at an extremely low body fat level still showing a bit of her cellulite, or her stomach sag, or her back arm looking less than completely perfect?

You haven't because the magazines fix that crap!

The women in those pictures do not really look like those pictures. Sure they're close. Sure they work their butts off and feed their families by scoring those photo shoots-- and YOU! and ME! Are trying to look like them 365 days a year and we will try this and we will try that, and when this and that and the other thing doesn't work and make us look like that--

We talk mad crap to ourselves. We beat the heck out ourselves. We aren't thin enough. We have cellulite. We never eat that. We always do this and we never do that. Why can't we just look like them? We do what they say they do in their little biography page thingy. Gosh dangit stop doing that! We are all striving to look like a fitness and or model, who doesn't look like the ads she is standing in, who earns her living making her body look, the way it is.

What do you do for a living? Oh, your a teacher? That's so great. Thanks for spending so much time, unpaid making our future generations think. Thank you for striving to teach them things they aren't learning at home. Thank you for sacrificing a pay check so you can better the future of our country. Thank you. Now tell me again, what's that "you still have cellulite" Who the eff cares? Everyone has cellulite. Even guys have cellulite. Do you eat healthy? Do you exercise regularly? Do you get enough rest? Do you drink alcohol in moderation?

If the answers to those questions are yes, why are you telling yourself you should look like a model? You gotta modeling gig on the side? No, you don't. You have a husband/wife who wants to jump your bones all the time, you have children that think you are the most beautiful creation in the world, you have people around you looking to you to TEACH them something. They aren't looking to see if you have cellulite for hell's sake.

I am not just talking to YOU, or YOU. I am talking to myself as much as anything. I saw a video of myself today, that my husband took in the gym of my 7 pull ups. I look at the video and I think to myself that that girl looks freaking amazing. Freaking strong. Freaking unstoppable. And then I realize it is me and I can not for the life of me, understand why I don't see that when I look in the mirror. All that I look at is my saggy skin stomach. When I look down that's what I see as well. It's so dang dumb.

Another girl, that I am friends with from a close circle of fitness minded women across the country I KNOW thinks she is ginormous. She has lost a butt ton of weight and she is still trying to figure out how to lose more weight and today she posts a collage of pics of her cute clothes on a budget and I am literally in AWE of how beautiful and fit this girl looks. She looks amazing. Yet, I know, she thinks she looks fat. Damnit she isn't fat. She isn't even close to fat. She is sexy sizzling hot. And she has worked so so hard to get where she is and instead of flaunting her tight a$$ around, she is trying to figure out what to do next to keep losing. She doesn't need to lose. She needs to focus on the freaking journey she has been on, be grateful and proud, and realize that the reflection she sees in the mirror is a dang liar--and she is so much different appearing than she thinks she is. It makes me mad, and makes me sad.

Why can I see the beauty in all of you so clearly? Why can I look at you and tell you 10 things off the top of my head that are beautiful and healthy about you, but when I ask YOU about yourself, you can barely think of one. In fact, the first thing that comes to your mind is the number that stupid scale told you you weighed.

You know what:? I haven't weighed myself in two weeks. You know why? Cuz it stresses me out. I eat clean, I eat to fuel my body every day and enjoy a treat from time to time. I train 5-6 days a week. I make goals and accomplish them. I work. I take care of a beautiful family that for some reason I got lucky and they chose me, and I get focused on what a number says. Its like in the beginning, I needed to weigh all the time, because I would see how much I could get "by with" a little snack here or a little snack there and then if the scale didn't go up it was ok. But now, now health is just my goal. And kicking a$$ in the gym is my goal. So my lifestyle is as balanced approach as I can get while loving that part of my lifestyle and loving to have a normal life where my kids and I cook a normal dinner together at night and we all eat together. I'm no longer half committed  I am fully committed and so when I think about getting on the scale I really articulate if I am going to be unbiased when I get on there and take it as a number, or if I am going to let it effect me--what I am training, how I am training, what I am eating, how I am spending my time with my family. And if the answer isn't "no it wont affect me", I simply don't get on.\

Now that's me. And I am 3.5 years into my journey. A lot of you are just starting out, trying to establish good habits. Most of my clients, you need to weigh in weekly, you need to follow a plan until we get you where you want to be. And then we maintain. Maintenance can be the easiest thing in the world, or it can be the hardest thing in the world. Depending on how you get where you are going. If you are willing to take the high road, work hard, eat right and follow the plan--when you get there the transition is simple. But if you are doing what you are doing, hating every second of it, and so excited to get to goal so you can go back to your old life--it wont work. It'll just be another check off the list. Another time you feel defeated like nothing works for you. It has to be a lifestyle.

And when you're ready to make it that lifestyle, everything becomes more simple. You don't fret over details, you will come to love who you are and where you have come from because it will have shaped the new you. You will learn to stop judging yourself for what you aren't and start appreciating yourself for what you are. You will realize how strong you are mentally and physically and you will understand that you are so much more than just what the scale tells you your number is. You will realize you are beautiful, because of how you look on the outside, for who you are on the inside, and for what you are capable of accomplishing at the end of the day.

The possibilities are endless. You can teach yourself to be/do anything you want to. You just have to settle in and get your mind right. Realize its gonna be work and if you look at it like that--you are going to be a sexy beast "doin work" and you better be dang proud of yourself because YOU DESERVE to be your own biggest chearleader. You deserve to be happy and healthy and you are worth the time it takes to achieve that. Not perfection. Aim for your best-- and that my friends, will be YOUR PERFECTION.

You got this. Keep going.