07/11/2023
I grew up in the 70s and 80s when, as a woman, it was fashionable to be super skinny and petite. If you had a flat bum, you were sexy AF, and that was that! Of course, I didn't fit into that particular category, and so for many years of my life, I struggled with self-esteem, fluctuating weight, comfort eating, and depression. I was a big girl... 5ft7 and solid with a bubble bum that was often the center of family jokes and jibes.... "My Amazonian daughter"
It was10 years ago that I started to realise that my physique was an asset rather than a liability when an ex boyfriend told me that girls spent hours squatting in the gym to have a bum and legs like mine. I thought he was crazy but the seed was planted, and 4 years ago, I knuckled down to training and competing. I wanted to see the body I was given treated correctly and embraced for being unique and special and mine. The result was that after 50 odd years of being self-conscious and self-loathing, and having made myself small, I found inside me an amazing, strong, powerful woman who is unstoppable and confident and brave and larger than life. She had been there all the time. What a waste of 50 years of valuable time for living just because society labeled my body "unacceptable" and definitely not sexy.
So my message here to young girls... f what the media and your mother thinks you should stereotypically look like. You are perfect and beautiful and most importantly....unique. Look after your body. Don't abuse it with diets and pills and self-loathing. DONT LISTEN TO S**T UNLESS IT IS POSSITIVE! Give your body all the love you need to be you.
Drink water, eat clean, exercise, read, meditate, and love yourself.
