Body Love

So I worked out today.  I know, pretty amazing, huh?  But this workout wasn't like my usual.  I hope you don't mind if I share with you what it taught me.

To give some background, two years ago I started my journey to health.  I lost 80lbs by eating right and working out regularly.  I found a love for running and pushing my body to do things I thought I no longer could do.  I cut out pop and cut down dramatically on my sweets and processed food intake.  I became kind of a health nut and I did it because my body and my spirit felt so much better.

Then I got pregnant in the spring of last year.  I did the best that I could but a lot of things got put on the back burner at certain points in my pregnancy.  By my 3rd trimester I had quite running and hardly did any kind of workout after that.  A lot of the healthy foods I had grown to love no longer appealed to me.  I lost my umph for a lot of things I had become very passionate about.  I basically just did the best I could to get to the end of pregnancy.

Well, Angel (my youngest) is now 4 months old and it has been really hard to find that umph again.  My eating has gotten a lot better but I have no motivation to workout and my endurance level is not what it was before pregnancy.  That makes for a bad combination.  Most of the time I don't workout and when I do I only do it about halfway.  It has been really hard and I have felt very defeated.  I don't feel empowered like I used to.  That's the hardest part -- losing a part of the woman I know I can be.

Flash forward to this morning.  I woke up after a night of hardly any sleep.  I was tired and feeling it.  All I wanted to do was turn on the TV, lay on the couch, and sleep.  I did sit on the couch for a long time.  I perused my phone all the while that little voice at the back of my head was nagging me to do a workout.  It was telling me all the shaming reasons for doing it, "Your pre-pregnancy clothes are still fitting a little too tight."  "You've hardly worked out since Angel was born."  "All you are doing is sitting on the couch."  "Everybody else works out even when they don't want to, why can't you?"  My response?  "Ok, ok, fine, I'll do it.  And I'm going to prove myself wrong by finishing a difficult workout."  So I set to work finding a good workout on Pinterest and I started it.

The going was pretty rough with all of those nagging voices in my head.  Not very motivating.  But I told myself I was going to stick with it so I did.  I started thinking about a lot of things about my body that had been on my mind.  Someone commented the other day about just how amazed they were that I was so skinny after pregnancy.  And it bothered me.  I know, I'm crazy, but hear me out.  Here I had grown a human being and given birth to that human being but it was coming off like my biggest accomplishment was staying skinny through it all.  It made me feel like my real contribution to this world paled in comparison to being pleasing to the eye.  Was I really working out so that my jeans would fit better when I just gave birth 4 months ago?  That didn't sit well with me.

So, I started counting all my body Drops of Awesome.  I grew a human with my body.  Drop.  I pushed that human safely through a small whole in my body.  Trickle.  I lost an enormous amount of blodd after pushing that human out of my body and bounced back in a matter of weeks.  Stream.  My body is now producing all the nutrients that human needs to grow and develop.  Downpour.  I seriously could go on and on and on and on about all the awesome things my body does to take care of myself and my family.  I felt SO empowered.  My priorities quickly shifted.  I thought to myself, "I am not pushing myself to do these hard things so I can fit into a pair of jeans.  I am doing these hard things because my body is strong and amazing and can do miraculous things.  I am doing them because I love my body.  My body deserves to be treated with kindness, love, and respect and I am going to give my body what it deserves."

So, I made a new pact with myself.  No longer am I going to exercise and eat right because I "should."  I am going to cut back on sweets because I love my body.  I am going to indulge in my beloved chocolate here and there because I love my body.  I am going to eat whole nutritious foods because I love my body.  I am going to exercise because I love my body.  I am going to push harder each day because I love my body.  I am going to take rest days because I love my body.  I am going to snuggle my children and my husband because I love my body.  I am going to smile and laugh when my son points out how jiggly my butt is because I love my body. 

Body love is where it is at.  Seriously.  Give it a shot.  You might just end up changing your life.

Here's a post workout selfie to end off my post.  Not to show you how hard and amazing my workout was by how sweaty my face is but to document the day I got my body love back.