I have spent a lot of my life not liking the way I look.  Many of my younger years were full of low self-esteem and poor body image.  Like many girls, and boys for that matter, I felt that I didn’t measure up to the standard of beauty.

As I’ve gotten older I have gotten better but I still have my days/weeks where I feel like I don’t look like I want.  My stomach is too flabby, my thighs have seemingly gotten bigger overnight, and my arms aren’t as strong as last week.  What I see in the mirror doesn’t match up to the image in my head.  I’ve had one of those weeks this past week and I’ve learned something.

My body does change from day to day and week to week.

My body is not going to stay exactly the same every minute of every day.

My body isn’t meant to be like a robot or mannequin and never change.

And this is ok.

There are so many factors that go into how our bodies look from day to day.  What we eat or drink, what workout we have done, what the weather is like, what clothes we wear.  With so many variables there is no way that we can keep our bodies exactly the same.

For someone who has struggled with body image issues, this can be a tough lesson to deal with.  I sometimes get into the horrible habit of looking at pictures of models/athletes and longing to have their perfect bodies.  What I often forget is that the image I look at is just picture of one point in time.  That is how they looked at that minute, it isn’t how they look every single day.  I shouldn’t compare myself to those moments in time, especially since they have been styled and edited to look perfect at those particular moments in time.

Don’t get frustrated if it seems like your body isn’t consistent with what you think it should look like.

Are you eating real and whole foods that give you energy and nourish you?

Are you moving your body in some way each day?

Are you working to improve other areas of your life not just your body?

Then you should be proud of your body for allowing you to do all those things.

 

I’ll leave you with this thought.  A few months back I was at my parents house for some family event  I was in the kitchen with my mom, dad, and husband.  Somehow we got onto the topic of body image and I said that girls sometimes just have “bad-body days”, days where we just aren’t happy with what we see.  My mom nodded in agreement, but my dad and Adam kind of just looked at me confused.  I asked my dad, “Don’t you ever have a day where you look in the mirror and you don’t like your body?”  He answered with, “Sure, but I don’t let it control my day.  I just move on and work to improve it.”  I asked Adam the same thing and he agreed with my dad.

I had never realized it could be as simple as that.  Yes, there is a big difference between men and women when it comes to body image but I think we can all benefit from adopting my dad’s mindset.

Don’t let your body control your day.  Work to improve it and move on.