Your life is going to change several time during the course of your years here on earth. Chances are your body will too. There will be times in your life when your in the best shape of your life then times when you are at your rock bottom. Some years you will be wearing your clothes with confidence and some years when you look for layers to hide the body image issues your running from.
Some with go thru life at a consistent weight, but many are not that lucky. Life, stress, hardships, medical conditions, pregnancies, and "midlife" crisis will take you on journeys you could have never dreamed of. Your body is a canvas and it will change. I can promise you that.
One thing I know for certain is your body is strong and it can transform into whatever your heart desires as long as your willing to go after it.
Will you all end up with flat six packs and sculpted arms someday? Probably not. But you all have the power to feel happy and confident in your own skin. How do I know? Because I have lived at both ends of that spectrum.
My transformation over the last almost three years is nothing drastic as you can see from my pictures. My weight has only had about a 5 lb fluctuation over this time. But my muscle mass has changed, my choices have changed and so has my confidence.
If you have followed my journey you know I started out as a mom just looking to drop the last few pounds I was carrying around two years after my first pregnancy. I did the 21 day fix and fell in love. The rest is obviously history because I am still here today sharing how much it helped my life. The girl who started this journey in the black shorts above was tired. She has no time for herself. She was skinny looking but lived off of junk foods and drinks from the drive thru at Starbucks each day. She hated her muffin top when she sat down and she was unsatisfied with her new mom body she had. On the outside she looked fine but on the inside she needed a change.
The girl with the abs on the far left. The rock solid ones. Yep that's me too. I earned those abs and quite honestly I can do without them. I wanted to see how I could sculpt my body and come back from a 57 lb weight gain in my first pregnancy. I pushed my limits from a physical standpoint. I said no to sweets and lots of carbs and I did ab workouts every single day until I hated it. I learned that abs are indeed made in the kitchen but if you wanted them to stay you had to be relentless. I decided it wasn't worth being relentless over. I started this journey to be healthy for my family. I didn't need to have a six pack to be happy so I backed off, but I proved to myself I could do anything I set my mind to.
The girl in the middle picture. She's smiling but she is terribly sad. This was her before picture taken just this past summer. She was about to do the Country Heat workout for the first time. She is 4 months out from suffering her first miscarriage. She used food to curb her emotions that she was going thru and she decided exercise was just too much for her on some days. The emotional eating and lack of exercise put her in a place she hated and didn't want to be in anymore. She needed to get rid of that weight she was now carrying to help move her forward from the miscarriage because each time she looked into the mirror she was reminded of what wasn't there anymore.
The girl in the next picture is smiling but it's a real smile this time because she proved to herself again that she can do anything she puts her mind to. For 30 days she went "all in" with Country Heat. She ate according to the plan did her workouts for 30 minutes each day and she wanted to change more than she wanted to stay the same. So she did just that. She changed. She healed a little from the miscarriage and she got her habits back on track. She felt good again.
Then you see the girl on the far right. Gosh is she ever beaming and she is so proud of what her body is doing. Her body no longer has a six pack. She is not a size zero right now and to be honest she fits into NONE of her clothes. You know why she is smiling? Because after almost three years of a struggle with infertility and loss shes expecting a baby. A long awaited and much prayed for miracle. That little belly she is sporting now is about to get a whole lot bigger and she is okay with that.
My story and my journey is not over. My body is undergoing a "transformation" and it will do the same again this summer once my little one arrives. You see this lifestyle really isn't about what the scale will say or what size pants your wearing. In every picture I am wearing a size zero pants. (Yep the maternity pants are maternity zero too.) But a size zero can look and feel very really different.
Wear your scars like armor it's proof you showed up for something hard. So what if pregnancy gave you stretch marks. It also gave you a baby. Maybe you have lost a ton of weight and you have excess skin. Be proud that you got yourself to the point that that's a problem for yourself. Realize your worth is determined by your heart and what is on the inside. Inner beauty beats the heck out of outer and inner beauty doesn't require any six pack abs.
If you need help rewriting your story. You know where to find me. Allow me to show you how, Lord knows the last three years has taught me how to do that.
Make 2017 your year to rewrite your story.
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