What is Body Positivity to you? Is it something a load of inspirational woman with fabulous curves are doing on the internet to promote that is is Okay to not be a Size Zero? Is it all about being bigger? Or is it something more than that to you?
I always thought Body Pos meant that it gave the opportunity for curvier women to regain some of the confidence and sass that was taken from them by society but it is actually so much more than that. It isn’t just about giving curvier people a banner to stand under and say, Hey, We are Worthy TOO! Body Positivity is about all of us, all of our bodies, big, small, tall, short, paraplegic, gender neutral, all bodies. It isn’t restricted to one category of body.
When you see or hear about someone who is body positive, the instant assumption to that is that they are Anti Weight Loss. An easy assumption to make and something I had always assumed and used to help me feel like it was okay to be my size, not feel ashamed and I didn’t have to lose weight to be accepted.
But how can a movement that is embracing being who you are as you are, making us all feel like we are okay as we are and we don’t have to conform to the unrealistic standards being set by the media. How can I accept myself for who I am as I am.. but also want to lose weight? Are they not polar opposites?
This was a question posed to me a few days ago by a lovely lady on Instagram. I am on a healthy eating weight loss program and she reached out to me and asked how it was possible for me to be both. One is synonymous with accepting who you are, no need to change and the other was change. So how can not changing what you look like and changing what you look like work, that’s just mixed messaging!
To me, it is not that they are polar opposites but actually partners in crime. Just because you like your body how it is, doesn’t mean you have to keep your body the same for the rest of time. Bodies change! They grow, they shrink, they stretch, they sag, they learn new and crazy skills like flossing.
Let’s take a moment to think about why we wanted to lose weight in the first place, which was first and foremost is because we have been told to by the media to fit in, be accepted and be attractive.
Some backstory for you, I have had an eating disorder since I was 16, it comes and goes and as I get older, it seems to fade away unless it is triggered. But since the age of 16, I have had the I NEED to lose weight mentality. I have always needed to lose more and more weight to be considered worthy and attractive. No one wanted to be my friend unless I was pretty, thin and perfect right?! That’s what the media implies anyway.
So funny story, after all of these years, I have found that not to be true. I know right?! Totally crazy fact. I found my friends liked me not for what my body looked like, but for my authenticity, my truly crap sense of humor and my kindness.
I learned my friends liked me, regardless of my body, for me, so I decided to test something and make a change to my mental behavior, I was going to not judge people by their bodies.
We always say never judge a book by its cover but we do it to each others bodies all day. We see a skinny person and think Oh My God, they need a sandwich, I bet they are bulimic, they must be so confident and full of themselves. Then we see a curvy person and we say Oh My God, they must be so lazy, do they even care about themselves? They need to go on a diet. And the stupidest thing is, we don’t mean the thoughts we think, these are just preset thoughts in our head that we have been told by someone and we are repeating them in our heads like parrots. That doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible for these thoughts, we are but just being aware they are there is the first step to freeing yourself from the vice society has wrapped around your neck, slowly choking the happiness out of you with its negative rhetoric. Because let’s be real, If you are thinking it, everyone else is too, that is why we are all so insecure and anxious because we think people are thinking to same bad shit we are because we have all been told the same shit by the media to keep us insecure and buying all of their products to make us feel better. (I am using allll the aggressive rhetoric today! #Spicyyy)
But anyway, back to the narrative! Like all people, I was brought up to think Big = Bad and unattractive. Thin= Size 0 is good. Anything else is unworthy (Thanks for that The Media). Until one day I decided to not judge anyone by their bodies. I was going to make a conscious effort to not look at someone’s physical form and create an image of what they looked like based on their actions.
Easiest thing I have ever done in my life.
Because bodies are great, but we love souls. That is why Ed Sheeran is so popular, people love his soul when his body doesn’t conform to the horrific standards the media have set for men. He doesn’t have a 6 pack set of abs but he is relate able and he is wonderful, so we love him.
So back to the story of a Jade, who only judges people by their actions, you quickly see the people you like and dislike and bodies have nothing to do with it. People from all walks of life are connected by their interests, hobbies and of course, their core value, not through their body types. So my “type of people” (see my core values post) aren’t one particular body type, they are all shapes and sizes and they are all great, worthy and wonderful because they are and its not because they have abs and zero percent body fat. Its because Who They Are is what we like in people.
So if I can make friends based on our mutual interests, values and hobbies, that means what I look like isn’t relevant at all? And I can make friends without looking a certain way?
Yes. Because bodies do not equal Self Worth. You are more than just a body, you are smart, kind, feisty, brave, scared, confused, handsome, a bit of kleptomaniac for coins on the side walk.
You’re self worth isn’t and shouldn’t be defined by your body.
So now that we have deconstructed that bodies do not equal worth and your friends and partners like you for Who you are and Not What you look like. Lets steer back into the main point of this post, how can someone who is Body Positive and loves their body, also want to lose weight?
Well let’s deal with Fact Number One, bodies change.
Ask any pregnant lady. Your body will change, it is a fact of life. So the question becomes, will you love your body when it does change? Bigger or smaller, 4 limbs or 2 limbs, will you love your body?
Number Two. There is no perfect body. We all have this idea to compare our bodies to and it is normally either you at your most shredded or its a heavily photo shopped model in a magazine who looks impossibly beautiful like a Nymph. But there is No Perfect Body. There is no benchmark of what you should look like. YOU SHOULD LOOK LIKE YOU. BECAUSE YOU ARE YOU.
Body positivity is to love your body unconditionally no matter what type of body it looks like.
The term Body Positivity is often attributed to “Plus Size” models (why aren’t they just called models?!) as they have embraced their bodies. But there is another sub section within body positivity called Fat Positivity, these two things are not the same. While it is a sub section of the general concept, body positivity covers bodies of all shapes and sizes, not just our lovely curvier people with more sass than I could ever have, it is here for our friends who can eat an entire pizza in one sitting and can’t put on weight.
This is how Body Positivity and Weight loss can blend in harmony, it is a small niche but it is there. If you love your body, but you want to lose weight for whatever reason you have (for me, it would be because pull ups become a lot easier) or if you just want a healthier life style, weight loss becomes a side effect of self love. If you start eating clean and moving more because you love your body and you want it to feel good, you will start loosing weight. But instead of coming from a place of self hatred and desperation to be accepted, it comes from a place of love.
So to briefly summarize, Weight Loss and Body Positivity work together because you motivations for weight loss have changed.
Hate (like self hate) can only lead to more hate so your motivations make you miserable and in doing so, make you want to emotionally eat your way out of the pit of sadness you are in because you are punishing your body.
Love (like self love) only creates more love and compassion. Have you done something for the love of it? I do with the gym, I don’t go to punish my body or so I can eat a pizza later, I go because I love exercise. I love moving around and progressing and I love my body regardless. You love training, you love eating clean and that sparks a passion that makes you enjoy the process of eating clean and losing weight. You love what your body looks like now but your body will change and you will still love it!
But being Body Positive, does that mean it is bad for me to lose weight? I want to set a good example for other people to feel confident but I feel like I can’t say I want to lose weight because that would mean admitting I am not happy with my body and I want to change it.
It is Not a bad thing! Body positive means = Loving your Body no matter what it looks like. So if you want to lose weight or even gain weight, it’s all good! It becomes a lot easier when you are doing it for different reasons.
Here is an examples from me:
I want to eat cleaner because when I eat clean, it helps me with my mental health, I feel better emotionally and physically when I am not eating crappy foods and training. This is my main motivation and I go to the gym and I train and I make decisions every day to eat clean and avoid crap foods that I know make me sad. If I eat clean and train more, weight loss is a side effect for me.
Okay, but is it bad for me to want to lose weight? I want to embrace who I am but I would also like to lose weight? How does that work?
There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, we are humans, we are always going to want to self improve, it just depends on what your motivations are. Health reasons? You want to get fitter? Want to just drop a dress size for confidence? There are many reasons to lose weight and that doesn’t make you a bad person if your motivations are aesthetic based, you just have to purify your motivations to be one of love and then it can all work together to keep you going rather than one of self hate. If you want to lose weight because you feel uncomfortable in your skin and you want to feel better. Focus on eating clean and moving and you will feel better and lose weight as a side effect.
Think of it as Re branding. You aren’t loosing weight to conform to society or to please anybody else. You are loosing weight because you want to. So that you feel better. So that you get healthier. So you can live a little longer and have more energy and not pant when you take the stairs.
Last Question! What if I wanted to look a certain way? Like I wanted to have the model model with rippling abs like I should be on Baywatch?
If you want to look a certain way like you should be on Baywatch, good for you! :) Body pos means no judgement of whatever personal choices for your body! It works for All Bodies! Not just the curvier of us! If you want to train for a particular aesthetic look, there is also nothing wrong with that! We all need to stop being so judgmental about each other bodies and start seeing them for what they are. Tools instead of objects.
So what happened when you hit the point of self love and all motivation stopped?
When I finally accepted my body for how it was, I found myself on one of my many “Diet programs” just stalling. So I had hit this point where I loved my body how it was and all motivation to “diet” was gone purely because, I had no reason too. It felt like a super power, like I was finally free after all these years of oppression in my own head. But for me, I like eating clean and training, I love my healthy lifestyle that I had adopted and a side effect for me was, I started eating crappy foods and I was happy with my bod but that bad mentality of nothing matters kicked in I can just eat whatever I wanted it doesn’t matter if I gain weight. What I did forget was that my Mental Health is influenced by the chemicals I put in my body.
Healthy foods = Happy Jade.
So I had to find a balance between loving my body enough to feed it the right kind of foods so my brain could be happy too, so I didn’t go on a new diet. I started a 12 week plan to eat cleaner and focus on fitness. Which will as a side effect, lead to weight loss but now I get to have treats and not beat myself up over it. I had a freddo the other day and didn’t flinch, say something shitty to myself or pinch my fat rolls. Something that if you have had an eating disorder before, is a benchmark achievement.
Something I have experienced in embracing this and trying to also, get my pull ups on fleek again, is that I love my body. I have struggling with eating my whole life, it consumed every aspect of my mind. If baffled me for someone to just eat and not feel guilty or want to immediately train after, I had NO idea that I didn’t have to feel like this. IT IS TOTALLY OKAY to let go of the disorder I have had in my life for so long. It has been so long, letting go felt like a betrayal of who I am. Like if I stopped beating myself up and caring about everything, I would stop being me or progressing. But the opposite is true, I found it was so much easier to make better decisions because I admitted to myself after 10 years that I like chocolate. Chocolate is that thing I binged but never really liked but because I didn’t like it, I felt less guilty about eating it? Since I admitted I like chocolate, haven’t craved it, haven’t even wanted to buy it, I just keep making better decisions about food that are healthier for me.
I am and will never again be defined by my disorder, I am choosing to step away and change those thought patterns in my head. I may struggle, relapse and have to fight, but that seems like a better option to me than avoiding looking in mirrors in shame.
All in all, if you want to lose weight, good for you! If you want to gain some weight! GOOD FOR YOU! The only thing that matters is that you love your body how it is, right now. Because all we really have is this moment.
The past is behind us, it is gone, no changing it.
The future is unwritten, we could all die tomorrow in a nuclear apocalypse and be fighting zombies for the rest of our short lives.
All we have is this moment that we are living in, this bubble of now. This is where you live, this moment. Do you really want to be spending every moment of your life feeling unhappy with your body? Your bod is already body goals, it may not conform to society’s ideas of the perfect body but it is still perfect.
We all Human. We all want to be working towards a better future and it is okay if that future is a different body type than the one you have accepted. But that bright future is paved by the small stones you place at your feet each day to lead you way into the future. It’s the small decisions we make each day that define who we are and the future you want to reach should you not die tomorrow. So decide what you want, then decide what stone you can place everyday to ensure that future comes about and pave, every day.
Thank you for reading! It is been a pleasure writing it and editing it over and over again so it is coherent!
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