I’m fit and healthy now, but it wasn’t always that way for me…
I remember getting invited to parties…looking forward to hanging out with friends all dressed up and sharing some good laughs. I also remember the first thought that would pop into my mind as soon as I got an invite…What am I going to wear?!?
For some women, this is the exciting part of going out. For me, it was the most dreadful part. I knew some of the women would show up looking beautiful in their sexy black dresses. While others would be dressed more simply yet still look beautiful. And then there were the brave ones that wore bold colour dresses that hugged every curve of their bodies. Those were the women I admired most because I loved everything about that look and if I could, I would have worn it too…
But I would never have dared.
Not with the body I had.
Not with my muffin top.
Not with my back fat rolls.
Not with my thick thighs.
Definitely not with my wide hips.
With the body I had, I knew had to go shopping and hoped I’d be able to find a decent pair of slimming pants. My go-to look back then were tights and oversized tops so that I could hide my body’s imperfections. But deep down, I dreamt of being more daring and wearing a vibrant dress, putting on stilettos, and feeling sexy and confident like the women I admired.
Have you ever felt like that?
The desire to feel beautiful, confident and comfortable in your skin….to love your body and wear the clothes that you admire so much on other women…to have this all for yourself?
Shopping would be so much easier if you had a body you felt comfortable in.
But instead you have to walk around the store, grabbing 9 pairs of pants in different cuts and sizes ranging from the size you think you are, the size you want to be… and the size you hope you’re not.
Now you have to face the feeling of scurrying to the changing rooms, hoping the sales associate doesn’t notice you, grabbing some tops to match on your way…and then you hear it….
“Let me get you a change room”
Oh, great. Now you’re bracing yourself for the fact she’s going to knock on the door to check in on you and see if you need more sizes (hopefully nothing bigger). Here comes the pressure…
I mean really, do you need yet another reminder that nothing fits the way you want it to?
You’re not surprised, just disappointed, when none of them fit your body right. The size you had hoped you weren’t fit a bit too snug. The size you wanted to be, well, they gave up at the thigh.
Now you’re upset, with the clothes, with your body, with yourself. You start thinking about all the unhealthy foods you ate the day before and are disappointed with yourself. You start telling yourself that you’ll never have the body you want…that you can’t lose the weight because you just don’t have the strength to do it…that you don’t have the time or the energy to make the change. You continue to tell yourself just don’t have it in you. You. Can’t. Do. it.
Your heart starts to beat faster…
You turn to look at your body in the mirror and feel nothing but disappointment and just when you think it can’t get any worse you hear it…
Knock. Knock.
“How’s it going in there? Can I get you another size?”
Your heart starts beating faster as you break into a sweat, embarrassed and unhappy and unwilling to admit to a stranger that no, you don’t want a bigger size because it still won’t fit so what’s the point? Instead, you say no thank you, slip your tights back up as your heart drops to your gut. When she’s not looking, you do the walk of shame out of the store, expecting to return with the next invitation, hoping the next time will be better.
What a blow to your self esteem and confidence when all you want is to look good and feel sexy standing next to other women at a party. Women who always look put together and confident. Gosh, I envied them.
I always wondered how do they did it. How they looked so good and wore it with such confidence. I convinced myself that they had it easy with a lot more spare time than I did. (I didn’t know better at the time.) As for me, instead of feeling sorry for myself that I looked the way I did, I kept telling myself I was too busy to put the work in to lose the weight. The effort and time to exercise. To have to cook healthy meals. All while having 2 young kids with a full time job. There was no way. I didn’t have time like they did. Little did I know back then that it was about so much more then just finding the time.
I felt like it was impossible for me. So I continued to put my energy into my business. I became a rock. Insensitive to my thoughts and feelings towards my body. I said horribly mean things as I got undressed and looked in the mirror: You’re fat. You’ve got thicker thighs than the month before. Look at your saggy arms and back rolls. What happened to you?
Yes, I was my biggest bully.
Every day I would turn away from the mirror and walk into the shower like I’d never said any of it.
But I did. I said it Every. Single. Day.
And I believed it.
As a salon owner, I spent my days telling everyone else how beautiful they were but I never said it to the woman staring back at me in the mirror. She needed to hear it most.
No one can hear how fat and unattractive and tired and gross they are day after day without eventually believing it. This became the biggest roadblock to my weight loss. My mindset. I spent countless hours talking down to myself. I held on to this negativity and let it weigh me down making me feel like I couldn’t escape it. Any thought I had about my outfits, my appearance, my image… was all negative. My mindset was my problem, not my body.
This is me now, living a healthier, happier life with more time and energy to spend with my family. My marriage and relationships are stronger. I feel more confident in my body and live life to the fullest (in many different outfits!) It’s important to listen to your thoughts and pay attention to what your saying to yourself. Because before we can change how we look on the outside, we need to change how we feel on the inside.
You are beautiful. I have no doubt about that. You’re here, reading this, wanting to be as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside. And I know that you can do it. If I can, you can too. And you don’t have to do it alone — I’ll be here to help you.
I’ve been the girl who had to buy plus size capri pants so that they would fit my thighs and go down to my ankles (I’m a shorty.) I’ve been the girl at a party, envious of how all the sexy, slimmer women looked. I’ve spent too many nights feeling guilty that I had no energy to take my kids to the park to play. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen the most stunning beaches in the world but had been too self-conscious to remove the towel hiding what my body looked like in a swimsuit.
I’ve also been the girl on the treadmill aimlessly doing low-intensity cardio to stay in the “fat burning zone”. I’ve been the girl doing 2lb bicep curls to avoid bulking up like man. I’ve also been the girl who thinks that 60 minutes of cardio a day (sometimes twice a day) is the gold standard for fat loss. I’ve tried back-to-back hot yoga classes, fitness videos, lots of cardio with light weights, no cardio with heavy weights, cycling, running, skipping, boxing, and everything in between. I’ve pretty much tried it all!
By wasting time, energy, and money on all this, I have learned what doesn’t work and what is detrimental. Starving yourself, eliminating all carbs, doing cardio until you feel like you are going to throw up, and sit-ups until you feel like you’ve been punched in the stomach will not help you achieve your goal if your goal is to lose weight, tone up, look fit, and get healthy.
My numerous failed attempts at fad diets, countless hours of research, endless hours of exercise, using various weight loss and calorie tracker apps, and advice from nutritionists and dieticians, have helped me develop a complete understanding of what does work, and now I can’t wait to share it with you.
Don’t worry…it’s not rocket science, but you really do need to know what you are doing. You need to have the right resources and you need to change from simply dreaming about your ideal body to owning it.
