Two years ago, I wrote a blog post called "scraggly pines" that was a love letter to my body and my arms and my new tattoo, reminding me of all of the things that my body is - that has nothing to do with what it looks like.
Two more years of growth and ups and downs on that topic - and I still love my tattoo. And I still sometimes struggle with how my body looks. It’s really sad that we put so much thought into our weights, and I hate that it’s getting so much more rampant lately after a few years of what seemed like progress. It makes me sad seeing women that I know and love and respect struggling so hard with this topic, and demonizing their body or the food that they used to fuel it that day. I’ve put in a lot of work over the past few years to stop thinking of food as ‘bad’ or ‘good’, but seeing it more as: am I giving my body the nutrients that it needs today?
Anywho - I could go on about this topic, but I really, really loved seeing my thoughts about this from my post two years ago; so I thought it would be fun to repeat the exercise and hopefully look back on it and have grown even more in the coming two years.
These past few months, I’ve been making my body strong by going to the gym. I used to go to the gym as punishment - if I wanted to eat those fries and a milkshake, I had to go ‘burn it off’ prior to eating it. Now, I’m going to feel strong and energized. I’ve been using the weight machines, which is new and intimidating to me but also fun and freeing. I’m freeing myself of the dreaded treadmill run and trying some new things (another thing I used to make myself do - run).
What I’m really hoping to achieve with the gym is just to be strong and active. I’m in my 30’s now, and I want to have the privilege of being able to move my body for many, many years to come. I love to hike and I would love for my hikes to get a little easier, and my stamina to get a little bit longer. I’ve always thought that my arms are weak - and I’d love to be able to try rock climbing with some sweet friends, or be more helpful to my husband when there are heavy things to carry. I just want to continue working towards doing some fun and interesting and cool and mundane and beautiful things, with the physical appearance of my body being the least interesting thing about me.
I mostly wrote this for myself, but if you’re reading this, I hope that you, too, are able to work towards making your body the least interesting thing about you. Xx