I Have a Love/Hate Relationship With Body Positivity

All I have to do is open up my Instagram account and I quickly have 3-5 images promoting body positivity and loving myself thrown in my face. Sometimes it’s just what I need to hear and sometimes it’s a little bit overwhelming. I feel like my relationship with body positivity is like waves. Sometimes it is high and fierce and other times it runs really thin.

Today is one of those in between days.

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I recently shared on Instagram (see below) about how I weighed in at the doctors at the most I’ve weighed since high school. (The number was 148 pounds if you were wondering.) I weighed 10 full pounds less just last year whenever we were living at my parents before we moved to Ohio and seeing that 1-4-8 stung pretty hard….at first. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CC3TczynasC/

I don’t own a scale because I will become obsessed with those numbers and I just don’t have space in my life for that nonsense. So I go by how my clothes are fitting. And back in June, like many of us, I noticed that my clothes were fitting tighter. Thanks, COVID stress baking. 

I chose not to stress and started keto again on the last Monday in June. I do what people call dirty keto and I’ve only had 3 cheat meals, which I downed numerous exogenous ketones before having. I’ve been pretty strict with my eating and my water intake, and I feel like I’m at a place where I should feel proud of all the good work I’m doing towards better health. (Enter body-positive mode.)

But then I looked in the mirror after my workout today….

THIS is where those good body positive feelings start to strip away: when the way that I’m feeling inside doesn’t match with the progress that I see in the mirror. 

I understand that being body positive means that those things shouldn’t matter, but they do matter to me. 

I hate that I’m constantly flip-flopping back and forth and it’s a continuous struggle, almost on a loop, that I wish would go away. 

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I was raised very much in a diet culture bubble. Because of this, I will always feel guilty if I go out to eat and don’t order a salad. I worry that I will always have an effed up relationship with food. And I know that since I carry all of my extra weight in my mid-section that forever and ever people will pass me on the street and wonder if I’m pregnant or not. These are the things that constantly swirl through my mind each day that I wish could stop.

So how do we break this cycle?

I wish I had the answer to that. I think for me, the thing that pushes me more towards body positivity than anything is Blake. I don’t want her to inherit my phobias and only see the proud mom who often puts on her bikini and sunbathes in the back yard. I know that she is watching, so I try to make sure I am always loving myself, even when its hard to do so. 

I think that this is something that will always be a struggle for me. I hate to say that, but this is the truth. Some people have problems with drugs. Some people have problems with drinking too much wine. For me, I struggle with accepting and being proud of my body. 

Looking for similar posts? You’ll love these:

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• 5 Things To Remind Yourself When You Don’t Feel Like Working Out
•  5 Post-Workout Stretches To Do Everyday
• Self Care Strategies For Busy Moms
• How to Workout at Home With a Baby or Toddler

All that I really wanted to say today was that if you have a love/hate relationship with body positivity, know that you aren’t alone. We all have our vices and as long as you are working towards acceptance, that’s the important thing. 

XOXO,

Allison