I’ve been wanting to post about this for a while, but it’s always kind of uncomfortable posting half nude pictures on social media. However, yesterday, I came across a movement called ‘THINSPIRATION’ which I personally found disgusting. I’m not at all trying to body shame people who are skinny, especially if it is due to genetics, but the messages I found on Pinterest left me angry for many reasons. One picture was captioned “gonna run ’til i don’t jiggle.” This sends out a dangerous message that you should do anything you can to lose weight, which could mean starving yourself, excessively exercising, etc. I want to tell you my standpoint on this issue.
Let me start off by saying that I am in no way glorifying my “progress” or my process above. I am in no way implying that you should look like frame #2 or #4. I think that “healthy” has no perfect look or weight and it really has all to do with your mindset and how you treat your body. But, that also should not mean that you should “treat yo self” everyday cause I believe that treating your body well is feeding it good food with a lot of nutritional value. I recently read this article that said “true self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.” So, yes, essentially living a life you enjoy and that makes you feel good everyday (easier said than done).
Going back to my pictures, you can see that the body images look slightly different from each other. Frame #1 was after my workout so I could look good in a bikini for Hawaii. From frame #2–3 and at #4, I was vacation-ing, and I remember always feeling guilty for not being able to exercise after eating out. It took me a while to learn that our body needs food to literally survive so eating is a good thing. Also, constantly depriving yourself of food can eat away at your muscle mass. At frame #5, I just finished an egg/veggie sandwich, and I am content.
Note that #4 is a morning picture and #5 is a night picture (only a few days apart). It’s okay to look different in the morning than at night. I am still not perfect with the whole food/exercise guilt, but I am working on it.
Also, what has helped for me is doing more strength work and less cardio (not the same for everyone). I did not realize how fun it was to lift weights.
I like to say something that I think some people, including me, hold true that I don’t believe is very “healthy.” That is the stigma associated with exercise. I noticed that many people exercise to “recover” from a bad meal or a vacation/holiday (i.e. running hours of cardio to burn off a deep dish pizza on their “treat yo self” days). This is a sign that people feel guilty from eating and food should never bring guilt.
In addition, I think that detox drinks are a whole lot of BS. It could help you lose weight but so does not eating anything the entire day in which starving yourself is not a fun or healthy way for sustainable weight loss. I remember reading something that said “you already have the best detox system in your body which is your liver.”
I believe that exercise should be a way to discover the strength and endurance of the human body, not to be skinny. I know that “fitspiration” exists too but i still have a problem with that because it tends glorify exercise as being an answer to all your body image problems.
In conclusion, I guess what I am trying to say is: eat junk food in moderation, find exercise that is fun for you (like rock climbing or soul cycle or just the gym if you like it), and if you’re really trying to lose weight, don’t fall for the “lose weight quick” schemes. Take weight loss with one SMALL fix in your eating habits at a time.