I think that many women who find themselves dancing with these thoughts \u2013 myself included \u2013 are here because we find it difficult to maintain our ideal weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Staying at the weight we want to be at is a battle – anything but\u00a0effortless\u00a0like the health magazines tote around.\u00a0And while there is\u00a0nothing\u00a0wrong with diving into the world of healthy living and experimenting with your body (hello, have you heard of The Experience?), this constant doubting, controlling, manipulating, etc. is harmful, stressful, and a complete waste of our energies (not to mention it\u00a0decreases metabolism and increases fat storage, not helping the cause<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I think the real problem here is that so many women find themselves in this daily, if not hourly, fight because they are aiming to maintain a weight that is 5-10 pounds lower than where their bodies actually want to be (again, myself included). We’re struggling to maintain a weight that, although we’ve convinced ourselves is where our bodies naturally land, is actually determined by the images of the ideal female body we see everywhere we look \u2013 billboards, commercials, social media, etc. To be honest, I think this obsession with keeping our bodies just 5-10 pounds lighter than they should be is actually one of the the least drastic\/harmful reactions to these photoshopped ideals of absolute beauty – but I also think living in this space is also torture. Those 5-10 pounds we are fighting everyday to keep off are like that one that got away: that thing that we\u2019re compulsively obsessed with, fixated on, need to have. That thing that you know will make everything in your life perfect if you can just catch it.
But deep down, somewhere buried in the very depths of your all-brilliant, all-shining, all-wise gut, you know that\u2019s not true. And I\u2019m here to tell you that that actually could not be further from the truth.
Those extra 5-10 pounds, that place where your body naturally wants to be \u2013 that\u2019s your life. That\u2019s your late night pizza with your man, that Sunday morning bottomless brunch, your favorite cupcake in the whole entire world because you wanted to treat yourself. Those 5-10 pounds are your favorite memories, your unforgettable trips, your celebrations of life.
Those extra 5-10 pounds are your spontaneity, your freedom, your love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think that many women who find themselves dancing with these thoughts \u2013 myself included \u2013 are here because we find it difficult to maintain our ideal weight. Staying at the weight we want to be at is a battle – anything but\u00a0effortless\u00a0like the health magazines tote around.\u00a0And while there is\u00a0nothing\u00a0wrong with diving into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,6],"tags":[21,22,29,33,36],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-image","category-identity","category-letting-go-of-the-ed","tag-healing","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-recovery","tag-selflove"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeinthemess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}