Hello everyone! So quite recently, I have made the decision to start working out and get healthy. As a way of educating myself on how I could do that, I stumbled upon this Buzzfeed post.
The thing I loved so much about this post was how at the end, there was a whole section about loving your body. I feel like lots of people, when they hear you're working out, it's because it's a looks thing. As in, you're working out because you want to look like a model. As in, you're working out so that you could feel beautiful. And here was this post saying that if you're going to start working out and getting fit/healthy, make sure that you're doing it for yourself and that it's YOUR choice. That if you want to workout, make sure that it's because you're saying, yeah this body is mine and it's worthy of love and it's great the way it is. But I want to give back to it by being good to it and making it stronger and healthier. That your body isn't a type of hell from which you need to escape. YES!!!
Now, I know what some of you (especially those of you that have actually seen me in real life) may be thinking: But Patty! That's easy for you to say!You don't know what you're talking about! You're not fat! You can't possibly know what it's like, and how hard it is to not hate your body!
I know. I'm not fat. So I can't say that I know exactly what it feels like. And while I can't say that I've never really hated my body, there was a time when I didn't like it. I was a chubby child. I wasn't even that fat, in retrospect. But at family gatherings someone will always comment on how much food I had on my plate, jokingly/sarcastically say that I was starving myself (which by the way, NO. You don't... that's not funny). My stomach would be protruding too much and it was hard for me to fit into clothes. I'd go shopping and everything would fit really well and I'd really like it, up until the point I had to get it to fit over my stomach. I was chubby and at the time I equated that with being not good enough. I didn't like my body.
Once, in grade six, I found out I was underweight after our annual physical examination at school. My weight wasn't any different but suddenly I was underweight. And you know what, it made me happy. I remember walking away from it and later at lunch I proudly told my friends I was underweight. It's like, ha! I'M UNDERWEIGHT SO THAT MEANS I'M NOT FAT. Which of course was me saying see? I'm not ugly.
Of course when I got home, and my parents found out, I was told to eat up. HAVE ALL THE RICE TO GET YOUR WEIGHT BACK. And I distinctly remember holding my cup of stir-fry the next day thinking, I don't want to eat this. It's going to make me gain weight. It's going to make me fat again.
I never really regained that baby fat weight, but I was still conscious of my body. Wearing shorts in gym, or wearing a semi-fitted top made me feel like hiding. I was always aware of my belly and I avoided certain types of clothing when I went shopping. It made me feel like apologizing for my body. To this day, stepping on a scale has me worried and I feel a little disappointed when the number is anything higher than 108 lbs. (Don't ask me why a specific 108 instead of 110. I don't know). It wasn't until recently that I've been able to say, this is my body and it's worth loving. And while yeah. Some days I look in the mirror and I wish that my stomach was flat or that there was a space between my thighs. I don't always like what I see. But I'm actively trying, every day, to be okay with it.
I'm trying to be healthy so that my body feels good. Working out makes my body happy, now. It makes me feel like I'm giving back to it. It's like saying, hey, body. I love you and I'm making a promise to take care of you now. I want to make my body strong. I want to make it healthy. My body is worth loving. And if/when you decide to start working out, I hope you make that decision knowing that so is yours.
If you need some tips on learning how to love your body, here's a great post.
If you are making that decision, here are some workouts that I think are cool because all you need is your body. No extra equipment.
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