Enjoy!
http://bodyblisscentral.com/body-snark-comebacks/
I've been doing a lot of research on "fat talk" lately (blog post to come!), and came across this GEM this morning. I laughed out loud for a hot minute at this stupidly early hour reading them. I am reposting in the hopes that you'll get a couple laughs, and some good comebacks in your arsenal. Note: I always suggest being kind to people, even when they body snark, but the suggestions for delivery are actually spot on.
Enjoy! http://bodyblisscentral.com/body-snark-comebacks/
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So the other day, I ran across this pretty fantastic article about the latest "fit mom" and her "no excuses" campaign. Essentially, this lady has a rock hard body and takes lots of pictures with her shirt off beside her little tyke with caption "I have a kid, a six pack, and no excuse." (you can see the picture following the link above if you so choose) Let me preface what I'm about to say with the following statement: I think moms should absolutely prioritize fitness if it is important to them. Fitness, ultimately, will enable them to be there for their kids longer and stronger. I have ZERO problem with fit moms. What I DO have a problem with, however, is that not only is this shaming strategy ineffective, it's stupid. Being fit doesn't necessitate having 6 pack abs. The kind of "fitness" being promoted by this "fit mom" is unrealistic for the majority of the population. Motivating people to engage in ACTUALLY achievable fitness activity is awesome...trying to convince busy moms that they have NO EXCUSE not to shred their bodies is absurd. My mom has facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (pretty good excuse not to have a 6-pack if you ask me) a neuromuscular disease that deteriorates the muscles of the face, shoulders, back, and abdomen. While she remains active and does a kickass walk in the mountains several times a week, she will never have 6-pack abs - she medically doesn't have the ability to. Nor should she ever desire to, dystrophy or not. She's the strongest woman I know, with or without a personal washboard. Not to mention, she's a damn good mom. More importantly, there ARE very important excuses for skipping days (or weeks depending on the situation) of exercise. I, of course, highly recommend being physically vital, but exercise is meant to enhance life, not get in its way. I have provided some solid excuses below. 1. I'm Sick 2. My kids need help with their homework 3. I have an injury 4. Game of Thrones is on 5. It's (Name Holiday Here) 6. I'm going out with friends 7. I haven't had a quiet moment to myself in a long time 8. I have a marathon this weekend 9. I kinda don't feel like it 10. My dog is throwing up everywhere 11. I'm graduating today 12. There's a hurricane 13. I have a homework assignment due 14. Resisting exercise is opposite to emotion action for my therapy 15. I'm so sore from yesterday that my waddle rivals Daffy Duck's 16. Screw the gym, I'm going DANCING! 17. Game night! 18. Date night! 19. Friend date night!!! 20. My sister is having a baby 21. My best friend called to catch up 22. I'm helping my classmate move 23. I want to take some time for my art 24. I haven't blogged in a solid month 25. Exercise isn't my thing...I'm all about that physical lifestyle baby 26. The neighbors just moved in, time to bake a pie! 27. I broke my leg so badly it looks like I wrapped it in kevlar and detonated a grenade inside 28. TORNADO!!!! 29. It's the annual polka dot convention 30. Screw the gym, I'm dancing contra! 31. Meeting the family for the first time...gulp. 32. SHARKNADO!!!!! 33. My sister came home from college and wants to hang 34. It's my rest day! 35. I have to pack for an epic cross-country adventure!!! 36. I have a job interview 37. No, seriously, Game of Thrones is on. 38. I'm having a baby!!! (I'm not. This is not an announcement!) 39. Family time 40. My friend is down and needs me. 41. I don't need an excuse. It's my body. It's my life. Moral to the story? Yes. Engage in physical vitality - play with your kids. Run if that's your thing. lift crazy heavy weights if that's your thing. Zumba if that's your thing. If you find a form of fitness you love, you won't NEED an excuse...you'll genuinely enjoy doing it and look forward to it. No matter what...remember that YOU and your family are your priority. Don't ever let someone else shame you into making their priorities your own. To all the moms out there. You're amazing. The fact that you can create a life speaks to the wonder of what your body can do. Forget anyone who shames you. Do what's right for you, your life, and your family. You are an inspiration as you are. One of my greatest frustrations with the fitness industry is its abuse of "Before and After" shots, fitness "modeling", and sexualizing fitness to sell some sort of (usually) unnecessary product or service to folks who (usually) don't know better. Let's get right into it. 1. Body Comparison is Harmful When someone posts a picture onto Facebook to showcase their newly acquired rock hard abs ((sponsored by some protein shake)) people often engage in body comparison. One of my all time heroines, Morgan Walker, conducted extensive research into the effects of social body comparison through social media on college-aged women. Morgan studied maladaptive Facebook usage in relation to these comparisons and discovered that " a particular form of maladaptive Facebook usage, focused on comparing physical appearance, is associated with disordered eating and fat talk in college women. " A similar study performed by Patricia van den Berg stated "In females, media body comparison and body dissatisfaction were correlated, and media body comparison played a modest mediating role for self-esteem, depressive mood, friend dieting, magazine message exposure, and BMI." Moral to the story? Comparing your body to other's is harmful to your happiness and wellbeing. It can trigger disordered thoughts and feelings surrounding food and exercise, and promote unrealistic ideals. When the fitness industry tries to sell you something by showing you an image of someone that "looks super fit," (and is often wearing very little clothing) they know that that they are affecting your self-esteem. They think that if they make you feel worse about your actual state, you'll be more willing to strive for their "ideal." And that's wrong. 2. These Pictures are Often Altered Australian personal trainer and fitness guru, Melanie Ventura, debunked the "Before and After" better than anybody I've ever seen. "Check out my transformation! It took me 15 minutes. Wanna know my secret? Well firstly I ditched the phonewallet (fwallet) cause that shit is lame, swapped my bather bottoms to black (cause they're a size bigger & black is slimming), Smothered on some fake tan, clipped in my hair extensions, stood up a bit taller, sucked in my guts, popped my hip- threw in a skinny arm, stood a bit wider #boxgap, pulled my shoulders back and added a bit of a cheeky/Im so proud of my results smile. Zoomed in on the before pic- zoomed out on the after & added a filter. Cause filters make everything awesome. What's my point? Don't be deceived by what you see in magazines & on Instagram. You never see the dozens of other pics they took that weren't as flattering. Photoshop can make a pig look hotter then Beyonce." She continued by encouraging people to "learn about food, come up with an achievable plan and most importantly enjoy how you exercise and live your life." She stated "Oh and transformation shots are great, but let it be clear- that being thinner doesn't always mean you'll be happier." ((Daily Mail)) Media literacy isn't just for magazines and celebrity shots. It's for ALL forms of communication you encounter. 3. Sexy Fitness Photos Tell You NOTHING About the Person's Health, Well-Being, Fitness, or Strength The extent to which people try to maintain a strict physical aesthetic can be both mentally and physically exhausting, and lead to unhealthy behaviors and symptoms. Those seeking to achieve and maintain "fitness model" physical appearance can suffer metabolic damage, infertility and/or hormone imbalances, and bone density issues. It's dangerous and unsustainable. But you can't tell that from a picture. (Let me be clear, you can't tell either way, but that's the point, isn't it?) You can't tell how fit, happy, strong, accomplished, nice, giving, compassionate or smart someone is from a photograph. Period. How many female professional weightlifters are used to sell mainstream fitness apparel? Not many. Their form of fitness isn't "sexy" enough for fitness companies. It's sad really, that some of the strongest women in the fitness world are rejected by so-called fitness enthusiasts because their sport (and some of their body types) don't "make the cut." Likewise, male athletes that don't fit into a masculine, muscular aesthetic are underrepresented in media messages. This isn't just for extreme circumstances, however. Remember that even Joe Schmo's pictures taken after his/her latest and greatest gym workout means very little if anything at all. Everyone's body responds differently to food and exercise. So Remember:
When I ask folks what I should write about, my personal story is the most popular answer. I will try as hard as I can to eliminate potentially triggering content, but please exercise caution in reading this account if ED related stories can prove triggering to you. I will not use numbers, or discuss my weight, but some relatively tame thought-processes will be discussed.
I grew up in an active family. Throughout school I played competitive sports including cross country, soccer, field hockey, and track. I loved the thrill of athletics, the endorphin rush, and the camaraderie that comes from being part of a team. I was comfortable with being mediocre, and riding the sidelines at times. I never judged my body or thought about calories, pounds, or formal exercise until college. In my first year at Carolina, I enrolled in a lifetime fitness course that required us to weigh ourselves, track our calories and exercise for a week, and weigh ourselves at the conclusion of the unit. Any health and wellness professional can and will tell you that this activity is absurd. Weight fluctuations are common, and the information gathered over a week is so negligible, it’s almost laughable. Beyond that, as I have expressed time and time again, weight is an exceptionally poor indicator of health. At the time, however, I was convinced that something was wrong with me. I had done everything “right,” and my weight had increased. I decided to continue tracking my caloric intake with the program and integrate exercise into my daily routine. It started as an “innocent” diet, and, as diets often do, it spun quickly out of control. I was so intense about tracking calories and logging exercise, that I lost excitement and enthusiasm for almost anything else. I refused to eat anything that wasn’t trackable and tracked everything that went into my body – to the last packet of ketchup. I was sucked into a vortex of “self-betterment” that became a competition of will. I learned to exercise self control to an extreme, ignoring my body’s cries for nutrition and forced my caloric deficits as high as I could. I never took days off, and found myself starting to get anxious when I couldn’t get to a gym. I realized that my mind’s resistance to expending energy got stronger and fought against the anxiety that pushed me to work harder and harder, until something snapped. I lost a lot of weight in my first year at Carolina – and received a great deal of praise for it. People complimented my body, admired my diligence, and looked to me for advice. I fed off of their compliments, craving the admiration, affirmation, and the attention I was receiving. Their kind intentions fueled my disorder’s fire. I began to abuse diet pills and engaged in dangerous compensatory behaviors. That summer I felt something was wrong, but brushed it aside. I was intensely uncomfortable with my body, and incurred major anxiety around food. I had restricted so heavily that my body craved everything I saw, and when I allowed my body to eat, I felt I couldn’t stop. I was out of control. I became scared. I felt that if I didn’t exercise better caution, my work would be for naught, and I would fall into my worst nightmare. I won’t describe it here, because the thought processes are so disordered that they are highly problematic, but I was terrified. I flew to Spain alone for my study abroad, pacing the airport with my heavy bags, lamenting the interruption in my exercise schedule. I arrived in Sevilla tired, lonely, and confused. I checked into my hotel, slept for a few hours, woke up to darkness, and cried for an hour more. I felt alone and lost. I was anxious beyond belief. I walked out of my hotel to find food, and circled for a good hour to find something my disordered brain found “acceptable.” Once I was put at a host family, and school started, the disorder took flight. I had no friends, no support system, no family, no voice to hear but the disorder and nothing to do but obey. I went for a run on my first day and got lost in the city, running for miles and miles until I found home, ruining my right knee in the process. I feared the food my host mother made for me, and would do almost anything to avoid eating things that scared me. My gym was my church and my disorder was its priest. I worked out incessantly, pushing through fatigue, dizziness, soreness, and hunger until my disorder was satisfied and my anxiety was abated. I lived and breathed to satisfy the disorder. I isolated myself from my cohorts, wasting away in the gym to avoid their food-filled recreation. I tried to travel as little as possible. The gym was my safety net, and the thought of deserting it petrified me. As soon as I would arrive home from a venture (I scheduled in my lucid moments) I would run myself into the ground trying to make up for lost time. My body screamed at me for rest, demanding respect, and I shut it up, pushing myself over and over, harder and harder. I had my first panic attack after eating a salad in Granada. I put corn on my salad, I didn’t know how many calories were in corn, and it sparked the most intense anxiety I had ever felt in my life. I wanted to cry, but feared the judgment of my cohorts. I ran to escape, but felt trapped even in my solitude. Something snapped - I was out of control. My disorder was screaming at me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Sometimes, my hunger kept me up at night. I couldn’t sleep, but I knew satiating my hunger would incur a nightmare were more terrible than anything in my sleep. Eventually, something hit me. I remember little other than that I walked into my apartment, fell into my chair, and started to cry. My tears turned into sobs, and my sobs choked me up, filling my throat and hands with grief, disappointment, and fear. I had lost myself. I was more machine than woman. I cared for nothing and no one. I hated myself. I hated my disorder. I could no longer separate the two. I called my mom, and cried to her. “Mom, something is wrong with me, and I don’t know what to do” I cried over and over. I don’t remember what she said, but I remember resolving to do something. I wrote everything that was running through my mind down, and promised to beat this thing. It was the first day that I admitted I had an eating disorder, and the beginning of a long journey to health. My favorite line from my writing became my recovery mantra over time: “I want nothing more than normality. I want nothing more than to let my life be run by my desires and dreams for the world rather than debilitating fear that by not letting it be run on a treadmill I am condemning myself to failure. “ But that didn’t happen, and arguably still hasn’t fully happened, for years. When I came home from Spain I went through refeeding, which incurred more anxiety and stress than I have ever beared in my life. My exercise was still out of control, and the disordered thoughts with it. It took two of my friends doubling down on me and begging me to see a therapist to convince me to go. My disorder wanted me to believe that I didn’t really have a problem - that compared to other patients, I was totally fine. **This is a common and highly problematic defense mechanism of the disorder. ** They practically dragged me to my first appointment. It was a disaster. But I persevered and began going to therapy weekly. As awkward, painful, and uncomfortable as it was – my increased vulnerability opened doors to recovery. I learned to exercise self-compassion, and opposite-to-emotion actions to combat the disorder. I started telling my close friends about my problems and received overwhelming amounts of support. Many people said they knew something was wrong, but didn’t know how to help. I felt immensely loved. I knew I wasn’t alone. With the support of my friends, professional treatment team, and family, I worked hard through three years of therapy, nutritional counseling, and numerous doctors appointments. I started to see the fruits of my efforts. My attitudes about food and exercise slowly relaxed, I started to love myself more and more as I regained my personality back, and re-established who I was. Those three years were the hardest and most rewarding of my life. I have never worked so hard for something so valuable - my life. I wanted to help others like me, to help people realize how worthy of love they are – especially from themselves. I wanted to wage the war on disorders from a broader perspective than that of my own. There’s a lot more to this story leading up to how I got where I am now, which I will likely tell in later posts. For now, let it suffice to say that treatment changed my life. I am changed, and my passions have evolved. That’s why I’m here. My disorder was fueled by and fueled my exercise. A healthy relationship with our bodies, with exercise, with food is hard for anyone. There simply aren’t enough strong role models that promote self love through exercise, that preach and practice compassionate physical vitality. I am on a new journey. A journey to be that role model to others – to help ensure that my friends don’t go through what I did – that they recognize how immensely worthy they are simply for being, and not for doing. |
AuthorMy passion lies at the intersection of physical vitality, movement, positive body image, and holistic perspectives of health and wellness. Archives
July 2015
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