Body Fluctuations and Body Acceptance

As a mother of two, who sometimes forgets to brush her own hair or struggles to find matching socks, I know first hand it's hard to put ourselves first all the time. With pregnancies, postpartum, and then lifestyle shifts from being a mother, I know all about body changes and how that can affect our self esteem. When I felt the most down about my body image, I gained almost one hundred pounds in the scope of nine months while growing my almost ten pound baby boy. Afterwards I noticed people would make comments or just treat me differently, and that was very hard for my self image.

I began to hear about the term "body positivity" where people would showcase their natural body's without posing, airbrush, or editing. I found that very enlightening and would practice shifting my mindset from "I wish my body didn't look like this" to "I am so grateful I have this body that keeps me alive, safe, healing, nourished, and able to connect with life and the people around me." I'd wake up and look at myself in the mirror, and before my usual self critiquing I'd start to divert my eyes to things about me that I love and appreciate.

I feel like practicing body positivity changed my life significantly, but I also would feel bad on the days where I just couldn't "Looooveeeee" my body. That is when I learned the term "Body neutrality." For me, that meant that rather than hating my body, or loving my body, I was simply neutral about it. I got to take a break from thinking and obsessing over my body one way or the other. As a fitness and wellness enthusiasts, I feel the added pressure to look a certain way, so I need to practice daily moving from the focus on how I look. I instead focus on how strong I feel. I focus on how mobile I am.

In the past two years, I've been healing from a spine injury. I have also moved away from chronic dieting and the obsession with the scale. That has caused me to lift heavy, eat intuitively, and also take more rest days than I would normally. It has been incredible for my mental health, my hormones, and my spine health. The side effect is the 30lbs I gained back from quitting the high cardio, restrictive dieting, and hustle mode I was in when I "met my weight goals." The fluctuations can feel hard when I can no longer fit in my old clothes, and I may not look like a "poster for health" according to what we usually see out there. I'd be lying if I said it was always easy to move out of these toxic mental patterns and that I don't have to constantly revert my mentality.

With everything that's been said, I do want to point out that after achieving my two year goal of healing, I am now changing my goals again. I would love to move from mostly strength building, to now mostly building endurance and flexibility. It's important to have a balance, so resistance training is still going to be a priority. A lot of the high intensity training will result in weight loss. I am happy right now that I want to lose weight, and that's okay. The difference with this change I'll be going through is that I am not "hating myself into a smaller body" I am "loving myself into a new fitness level." The main shift here is mindset. As I am moving my body more quickly, and eating in a way that sustains my new goals, I will daily practice gratitude that I have this strong mobile body that lets me shift the way I move, feel, and even look.

I know it's difficult in today's society when there's the expectation to freeze ourself at 20 years old, shrink ourselves into a smaller body, and stay the same all of the time. We as humans, and especially as women, are cyclical beings. We are meant to shift, evolve, change, and move through different cycles of life. Aging is beautiful, fluctuating weight is normal, and being "authentically you" is what makes you thrive as a unique individual.

Much love,

Brittney xoxo