I remember shopping for my first skirt suit back when... well, over 30 years ago. I ended up getting a size 12 suit. I had my pre-kids hips and I thought of myself as a fairly average build. Fast forward to now, and I am all of a sudden a size 6. Apparently I am half my former self. 30 years, three kids and a menopause later I supposedly went down 3 sizes!
What actually happened was that over the years, little by little clothing sizes have become more generous. On the far extreme we now have zero and double zero sizes due to the fact that these small figures are too small for the new small.
Yet, if you shop in Europe, you will find you are a different size. There sizes are still based on actual measurements. Why is it that European women don't have to be soothed or coddled to think that they are still tiny!!? Why aren't they a messy heap in the corner sobbing over back fat? Here in North America we know it's a lie but we eat it up, we love it when industry boosts our fragile self image.
Why have we become so weak? When and how did we hand over our sense of self to industry/marketing/commercials? We look outside for help, we want others to fix us, to tell us we are ok or pretty and we completely forget that it should come from within.
I heard it said that progress is impossible without self love. Self love does not mean that you have no goals, that you are content with where you are at. It means that you love yourself on the journey to your destination.
Did I celebrate the fact that I fit into a size 6 after I lost 10lb and busted my ass in the gym and felt better and stronger than ever (not to mention that I fit into an incredible dress for my daughter's wedding)? Absolutely!! But my win was not the size, my win was that I felt like Wonder Women, ready to conquer anything.
I started writing this as I felt kind of sluggish, as I want to get back to that strength, that energy, that feeling of accomplishment. We all know there is no magic pill. Other people can motivate us but that is temporary. We have to get our asses to the gym, we have to put the right foods on our plates, we have to do the work!! We can look to others for inspiration, for accountability and for advise on how to go about this wellness stuff but we have to find the program, the guru, the leader.
I am making a plan and I found my partners to do it with. How about you?