Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

As Miller says, "pretty much every picture in a magazine or ad is airbrushed . . . I don't think the public understands how much smoke and mirrors are involved in making women look like that."

 It's been about a year since my "retraining" post ... a lot has happened. A lot of conversations, a lot of gym time, a lot of articles on health and dieting and eating healthy read...

Yet sometimes I feel right back where I started, staring in the mirror, unhappy with myself.

One thing that I think has seeped into my brain is this idea of comparing myself to everyone else around me. It's as if health and fitness (or some other point of comparison) is on a giant grid and I am on one point. If I can see where everyone else is on the grid, I can tell which direction I want to move in.

Donald Miller talks about the lifeboat theory... always comparing one's self to others "well, I may be... but at least I'm not..." "I'll get thrown out of the lifeboat after that guy..."

Let's just say, one shouldn't wander through life wondering who is going to displace you next.

I've been having conversations with a few of my guy friends... about women and the media... about knowing ourselves... about... life.

A few guys have actually said it would be great if airbrushed or altered photos of women came with a label... so they could just tell themselves that those images aren't real.

I must say, it makes sense in my mind... it didn't bother me at first, but after thinking about it... I came to realize how much of a problem we could potentially have on our hands... (see the quote at the top from this Guardian article.)

A few years ago, most of my guy friends would say they hated stick skinny women, in Funny Girl, Barbara Streisand's character is actually rejected from showbiz for being too skinny... shapely, curvy women were attractive and healthy.

It's like, these images of "altered" women are taking over, making, in my opinion, both men and women dissatisfied with natural women's bodies (and probably men's too... but... let's just stick to women for now).

Since 1973, psychologists have found that women who suffer from anorexia actually SEE and PERCEIVE their bodies as being bigger than they really are. If a woman's waist is 25 inches, she'll see it as 25% to 50% bigger...

So what does this have to do with me... surely I don't have an eating disorder... no I don't...

In 2011 I went to the gym, but lazily... I didn't want to put on muscle, I didn't want to be bulky, I didn't want to be too strong... now these lines sound crazy to me.

I got this handy lil app called myfitness from the android store... I've been just keeping track of my calories. I wanted to see how much I was eating on a normal day... same as last year, around 1400-1600 cals. Much better than before.

I joined a gym and started taking some classes where I'll make some muscle... be stronger, that is.

Already I can notice my posture is better, I have loads more energy, I smile more, and working to the max, not just a little bit... is just so much more motivating. I'm actually sweating during my workout... I'm having to push myself. 

I even got a trainer to make a few workouts for me... an expert who can tell me what kinds of exercises, how many, how often, how many reps, etc. Instead of just making it up as I go along...

So why am I so unhappy right now?

Even though I'm feeling great, some of my clothes are a bit tight on me... it's probably a number of things, from bloating or just the fact that the muscles build up then the fat burns off... whatever... it could be anything... but my clothes are a bit tight, so I automatically went to "I hate myself" mode.

More than training my body, I need to retrain my mind (and methinks possibly the minds around me) so that they don't just see cellulite or a bit of hips... but that they see a person.

While on any average day I love myself... while I'm learning to admire the curves I've been given (God bless J Lo's and my bum) I also have this annoying gnat inside my head saying "if you're too curvy, guys won't like you"... this gnat has come from too many guys I know talking about skinny women... and I'm hypothesizing that some of that has come from being bombarded with airbrushed women everywhere...

Regardless... I'm going to work on more consistently loving myself with workouts and healthy food. My body's gonna love this!