Thursday, February 2, 2012

Some girls....


This is the picture I saw today that just fired up the rage inside me. You're probably thinking "easy, snapcase" but this is something thats been a personal struggle of mine and SO many other girls that I talk to about fitness. Almost funny, because I have talked to my two closest girls about this 'issue' of mine recently and they both 100% understood what I was saying. So Im not only pissy about this for me, but for the other millions of women who probably feel the same way. God bless us blabber mouths.

As if women dont struggle with their image enough as it is. Everytime you turn on the tv, whether its the sexy cheerleaders on Monday night football or the hot broads in the beer commercials...they are everywhere. Even walking through the grocery store and feeling bad for everything you buy thats not green and leafy, just to go stand in the line up and see 40-whatever-year-old Jennifer Anistons perky nipples in her million dollar bathing suit on the latest cover of Vogue are staring right at you. So maybe Ill just put those Reese's peanut butter cups back riiiiggghhhht back over there where I found them. Yeah, we have all been here before.

I get it. I do. I also would love to be skinny and fit and have six pack or abs that would leave Jillian Michaels speechless. However, its not as easy as you would think.

I am a firm believer that the reason people are not successful at weight loss, and health in general, is because they are doing it for somebody else when they should be doing it for themselves. Thats where this stupid picture comes into play.


"Make your lovers proud"

Is that how I make my lover proud? Just eat salads and look cute? How about my accomplishments or my brains or maybe even my heart? I also get this to a certain extent. Of course we want to look good for our partners. But if trying to be sexy for somebody else is what puts the fuel in your car, your car wont be going too far. I personally have probably put on about 20 pounds since my boyfriend and I started dating. And being the good man that he is, he wants me to live a healthy lifestyle. But when he encourages me to go to the gym or not to have that last little snack before bed, I seriously want the dog to jump up and bite him in the nuts. Oops! But yes! It pisses me off like nothing else! I dont think "he wants me to be healthy", I think instantly "he thinks Im fat and no longer attractive". I want to say "thats just the female in me" but thats also a bullshit cop out. What that is is the insecure, self-conscious-because-I-have-eaten-too-many-servings-at-Earls-over-the-last-three-years mixed with a little maybe-I-should-have-taken-it-easy-with-all-those-martinis guilt. And the guilt should not be targeted at my poor guy for being suggestive, but should be funnelled into fuel for my "healthy brain, healthy body" mindset. Because THAT car will go a lot further. I hope that my lover will see more in me than a number on the scale, and if he doesnt, well there's the door. And that has nothing to do with weight, thats just being a shitty partner.

"Make your haters jealous"
Well I hate jealousy. Jealousy, right next to drugs, alcohol and money, is the root of evil. Jealousy is THEE worst feeling to feel so I cant imagine purposely trying to make somebody feel shitty about themselves and make them want to be jealous of me. Pretty sure I would be more jealous of a Harvard grad than of Pam Anderson. Maybe Im wrong, but I dont feel like I have a lot of "haters". I know one chick from highschool hated my guts (fair enough) and Im sure theres a gallery of people who dont like me for whatever reason (brings me back to a quote by Winston Churchill, "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.") but Im pretty sure having defined calves isnt going to make them jealous. They would probably never know, or never notice and if they did, they would probably just hate me more. Problem=not solved. People who "hate you" are just negative forces in your life that bring you down. So how about instead of trying to make them jealous, you just cut them right out of your life. And if you cant, well, that brings me to another quote. "If you dont like something, change it. If you cant change it, change the way you think about it". And if you have a lot of "haters", maybe you are the problem, which means you'll need a bit more than a set of dumbbells to fix your problem. And besides, woman to woman, whats with all this competition?! How about wanting somebody to be the best they can be? Thats ok, you know!

I guess what Im trying to say here is that we all have enough stuff going on in our lives. We have jobs (well I usually do) friends, companions, kids, pets, social lives, groups, meetings, etc. So if you are going to take the time out of your crazy life to make healthy changes, which you should absolutely try your best, do it for yourself. Not to make anyone love you more or to make anybody jealous, just to make yourself a better, healthy, more complete person.

This is my list of reasons why I would like to feel better in my own skin:
-Cancer runs in my family and cancer percentages are more likely with overweight people.
-I want to be able to play and run with my kids
-My cousin Lindsay and I want to run a 1/2 marathon and we want to do it somewhere cool like Prague, etc.
-I want to look out for my body and not face challenges like diabetes
-I want to be able to run 5k without stopping once
-Id like to not feel like I have to suck in in every photo
-I want to feel good in a bathing suit, for me, not anyone else.

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