Being Happy with What We Have

Glamour and Fitness, 2009 Photo

I love the above photo. These are women with real, average size, bodies. That's right. They are the norm. 


Fit and Fat?


You cannot tell how fit someone is by what they look like or how much they weigh. Marketing, media and society have taught us to worship at the alter of "thin". The majority of fashion design is still directed at a pre-pubescent, near-anorexic and near-impossible body size. We need to throw out our expectations of what we should look like and focus on our health and fitness.


Can you walk up the stairs without getting winded? Is your blood pressure normal? Are you at risk for heart disease, diabetes, cancer? Do you have the energy to play with your kids/bike to the store/garden all day... perform the tasks or sports you want to... at the level you would like? These are the important things. It is not important that you can fit into your size ___ thing that you wore when you were in high school  and before you had kids, or look like _____ in a bikini. IT'S NOT IMPORTANT! (Sorry for yelling.)


As a fitness instructor it actually saddens me to meet with people whose sole purpose in exercising is to lose weight. I also find it sad and interesting that on a local buy and sell site (where people post about items and services for sale in my community) someone will post about a new "cleanse" or "diet pill" product and receive tons of responses--whatever the cost or actual usefulness or safety of the product; while posts about fitness classes (some offered for little or no fee) get no attention whatsoever. This tells me that they want the body--it doesn't matter about health, and they don't want to do any work. 

Olympic Athletes

Your body size and shape is determined by so many things, the first being genetics. Yes, you can alter things with diet and exercise, but, in the grand scheme of things, you need to be happy with the way you look at this moment as you strive for a healthier, more fit, you.