Monday 3 June 2019

Stronger not skinnier.

For most of my adult life I have had an interesting relationship with food, with my body and with my mind.  So many of us do, am I right? My body is never something I have been proud of, I have never really made it a priority to love it and to take care of it.  Same goes for my mind really, I let it overthink and obsess far too much never really taking care of my mental health.

Growing up I learned the basics of nutrition and exercise but I don't think that our generation were really taught about taking care of your mind.  Mental health was something that was almost scoffed at.  The word, 'stressed' was banded around a lot but nobody really seemed to take mental health very seriously.

If you've come across my blog before or know me personally you will know that my mum has suffered with anorexia nervosa for most of her life and therefore I grew up witnessing her daily battles.  This disorder also meant that although she tried her best to protect us from it, I developed an unhealthy outlook on eating and my body image.  I have never been anorexic, it just meant that over the years I treated my body utterly disrespectfully and allowed my mind to tell me I was fat, ugly and unworthy.  This in turn meant that I was never motivated to learn about the ins and outs of nutrition and only ever exercised in the pursuit of a flat stomach.

By 2012 I was living alone and was well versed on surviving on Diet Coke, sweets, the odd block of cheese, cucumber and a few other things in between.  I loved all the 'bad' foods and would deprive myself all day long so that I could eat that pizza on Friday night with my boyfriend.  In my head I was surviving and fitting in size 8 clothes so all was grand.  Looking back my mood swings were horrendous, my self confidence was non existent and often all I wanted to do was think about food or sleep.

Falling pregnant in 2013 meant that I had to start taking better care of my body in order to grow our beautiful daughter.  I was hungry/ HANGRY pretty much ALL of the time and boy did I eat.  Finding Sam and having our daughter did stop me from abusing my body and I began to at least respect it for taking care of my daughter for 9 months and delivering her safely into my arms on December 31st 2013.

Again, if you know me or have read my blog before then you will know that I quickly fell pregnant with our son 3 months after having Posey.  This meant that getting my body ready for our wedding went out the window and again I focused on eating 'well' for our unborn child.  We were blessed with our little boy 9 months later but it meant that I absolutely hated myself on our wedding day and unfortunately struggle to look at most of the photographs that were taken on the day.  - I feel it is important to point out here that our wedding day was still one of the happiest days of my life, I married the man of my absolute dreams with our daughter by our sides and our son in my belly.

Fast forward to 2019... I have just turned 30 and my husband has recently started hitting it hard at the gym.  He has always been active but has become seriously motivated to eat well, nourish his body and train like a beast.  I am so proud of him but it also turns out I am quite competitive... so I started following him to the gym.

The gym has seriously awakened something inside of me (so cheesy i know but it is true).  At first I was absolutely terrible at it and attempting to work out having not had time to eat much at work or drink much water.  I found myself feeling inspired to train harder and make my body stronger.  I am motivated to learn more about food and nutrition.  I want to know about foods to improve my skin, my mood, my fitness and my energy levels.  I want to learn about HIIT sessions that can improve my stamina and my strength not that can make me 'drop a dress size' or gain a beach body within a week!

The shift in my mindset is honestly incredible I am less frightened of food and far more willing to learn about my body and take care of it.  Instead of cursing it and hating my IBS I am trying different ways to appease it.  Instead of reaching for alllll the Diet Coke to get me through the day I am starting my days with a hot lemon water and drinking so much water - now don't get me wrong I am still me and I still love Diet Coke but there are changes around here and I am bloody happy about them.

Do I love my body now?  - no, it would be silly to say that I do but I am working with it now and trying to take care of it.  I want to be a mum that my children are proud of and one that has energy and good mental health.  I love to train with Sam and I honestly think it is working wonders in our marriage and basically I am just a happier, more motivated person.

I actually think that this change will stick too -  going to the gym is now something I really look forward to, I am enjoying learning about nutrition and bringing our children along for the ride -  and look, I am motivated to write again so I must be onto a winner.

If you are looking to change and become more in tune with your body's needs and your mental health and sincerely recommend you look up Sarahs_day - she is an Australian holistic health blogger and YouTuber.  She is massively motivating and has so much knowledge to share with daft sods like me who really didn't know a thing about taking care of my body and mind.

side note: thank you Sam for also being massively motivating and supportive - not only does he big me up and support me but he also bought me an Apple Watch and air pods last week to show me how proud of me he is! I mean #husbandgoals or what?!

Sorry for such a long winded post - I am just feeling motivated and actually possibly maybe just a little bit proud of myself!

Thanks for stopping by,


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