The gym. My foe and my friend. Recently, in light of my upcoming wedding, I have been working my ass off in that stinky little slice of hell....literally. the aim is to of course look better than all my tiny bridemaids (why do I have to have such small friends!!) and be happy with the wedding photos. It is not for my husband to be, in fact he swears black and blue that he finds me sexy and beautiful the way I am, and I believe him.
It's for me. Because I don't think I am good enough the way I am.
So I have become almost obsessed with counting the calorie I put in and what I burn. I have just spend three days in bed sick and have started to panic that i haven't been to the gym. I worry that I am getting a little to preoccupied with my weight but then wonder if it is healthy to be worried.
Is there are middle ground?
How can one be happy with how they look and be trying to change it? How do I let myself be me and be happy with it and yet spend hours in the gym trying to look completely different? And when does it stop? Will I ever be ok with how I look if I start down this road? Or should I stop and make a stand and start waving "big is beautiful" banners?
It is doing my head in trying to figure out if I am being healthy in my mind by trying to be healthy in my body. I want to lose weight but I want to love myself while doing it. Yet that seems to be an oxymoron and I haven't learnt how to do that yet. So I have days where I want to spend hours in the gym and then days when I wonder if I am doing the right thing by trying to fit into the 'pretty' category. Maybe I would be doing a better thing for teenage girls and women I know if I stay the way I am because I am happy that way. But am I really happy?
There are times I just want to rebel, to scream at this world that lives and dies on its advertizing, its messages telling people they aren't good enough. If I just flipped the proverbial bird at the billboards and adverts, the oh-too-skinny models and the makeup companies, then mabe I would see what really matters. Maybe then I would look in the eyes of the man who already makes me feel beautiful and skinny and see what he sees. Maybe then I wouldn't be so quick to laugh when he calls me sexy. And maybe, when I read that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by a Creator that I love above all else, I would believe it.
Tomorrow I will go to the gym and ponder these questions as I feel my thighs burn and the blisters on my feet grow, and maybe, just maybe, I will be happy with the wedding photos after all.
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