hammiemam’s BodyBlog

I am struggling to convince myself that weight is not the number that matters.  My clothes are fitting better, but because that number is up, I am discouraged.  My "fat clothes" are feeling big, and I am actually getting the fluids my body needs, but I sometimes neglect to see the positive and I focus so much on that number. 

People, and women especially, are so conditioned to look at that number.  Those magazines I consider to be "soft fitness mags" revolve around the big weight number.  Headlines in the grocery store checkouts boast ways to lose ten pounds fast.  Others brag of the latest diet craze that they take credit for finding.  These headlines I’ve been reading since I was pushed around in a shopping cart by my mom have caused me in a rather unique, but negative, way.  Thankfully, I am strong, and I have mostly overcome these negative messages.  But while I am working hard and seeing physical results, that number is still on the forefront of my mind.  I wonder about other women out there.  Women who are also struggling with their body image.  Women who are working so hard to recreate their bodies into something they are more comfortable with.  Women who are so consumed with this cardboard cutout of what women are "supposed to look like."  Women who read advertisements in even respectable magazines like Oxygen and think that they can look like the other women in the ads (not the magazine itself) in a matter of days.  How are these women holding up?  Are they falling into that media frenzy?  Are they handing over their master cards every time they buy into some magical product that supposedly makes their body just the way they want it to in a very short period of time with very little work?  Ugh!

I just wish I could promote the bodybuilding lifestyle to all these media made women with understandable insecurities so they could address their body image problems in a much more progressive manner.

Forgive the late night rant.