I feel like I am constantly in a love hate relationship with my body, more hate than love. My weight has fluctuated over the years. I have to put a lot of effort and time in to losing weight or being at the weight I want to be. I am not one of those girls where thinness comes naturally. Or can eat whatever I want and not gain an ounce.
One thing I find that I am constantly doing is looking back on pictures of myself and thinking “if I could just be that skinny again”. The funny thing is, at the time I was dying to be thinner or loose more weight. At that time I would look in the mirror and say, “if only I could be this size”. When I came to this realization that I was always wishing for a different body or a different version of me, it baffled me. I wasn’t grateful for the body I had at the time when I look at my past self. And I still am finding myself not grateful for my body now either (hence the looking back on pictures).
Why do we do this to ourselves. This constant battle to always be better than we are. Why aren’t we happy with our present self.
I have made a promise to myself recently that I am going to love my body and myself more. Every stretch mark, every roll, my c-section scar, my tired bags under my eyes. All of it.
The body I have right now is a reflection of the hard work I am putting in being a mom. I am a new working mom, I had a birth belly, and I carried my beautiful baby for 9 months and recently dealing with my 4 month old’s sleep regression. My body is a freaking rock star! It brought life into this world. It continues to nourish my baby and help her grow! Let’s, stop and think about that for a second… my body is providing the nutrition and food my baby needs to grow big, strong and smart. How amazing is that? Even if you aren’t breastfeeding currently how miraculous is it that you grew a baby from a small speck to presently. You are helping this little human develop and learn. Our bodies are the most comforting things to our little ones. They run to hug us, burrow their face into our shoulders, and want to hold our hands. You are perfect in the eyes of your sweet child, they think you are super woman.
This is exactly why I have promised myself to not be so hard about my appearance and whether or not I am not at the ideal dress size. Or maybe how many carbs I ate or calories I burned today. Also, who makes the rules for what an ideal dress size is anyways? Like the quote says on my kitchen wall, “life is short… eat cookies!”. I am going to be grateful for the beautiful body that I have today because it has and will continue to do some incredible things.
