What If Girls Were Encouraged to Be Strong...

What If Girls Were Encouraged to Be Strong Instead of Skinny...

Everyone has that pair of jeans in their closet from their high school days that they are just dying to fit into. There's this one pair that I have had saved, I remember I wore them on my first date with Adam seven years ago, and haven't fit in them since...well this morning I got a, hmm what some might call, a wild hair up my ass, and tried them on. They FIT! Three weeks ago I couldn't get them up over my butt, this morning I not only got them over my butt...I also zipped and buttoned them with no muffin top! Whattt Whattt!

Anyways the point is this, in highschool we all just want to be a size zero. We are taught that the skeletal model who's skin is literally hanging off her bones is the ideal of perfection. Not only in the eyes of the males around us, but in the eyes of other women. Sorry Dudes, honestly we don't get dressed or starve ourselves for you, we do it for other girls.

I can remember being in a size two, and standing in the mirror pinching my "fat"...looking in the mirror loathing my "fat" butt, and my big boobs. I hated them. I hated myself. I would go to school, chew gum all day so that I didn't get hungry, drink some "peach and papaya" falvored juice drink loaded with high fructose corn syrup, then come home from school and sleep through dinner so I didn't have to think about food. I would wake up do my homework and eat some stupid toast with mozzerella cheese on it then go back to bed. I didn't exercise, I didn't pay attention to my caloric intake or the nutrituonal value in anything. I just focused on the number on the tag of my Abercrombies. The summer when my hips came in and my boobs grew and I had to buy a size six when we went school shopping...I thought I would die.

Never then at 140 pounds, with zero muscle tone, could I have imagined that I could have reached a staggering 289 pounds the day I went in to give birth to my sweet little Addy Bear. That thought still makes me sick. In my journey back down into "onderland" I learned so much about myself. I think a lot of it has to do with the divorce, and the removal of Adam from our lives...but as I sit here today I feel like more of a strong, complete, honorable woman then I ever have before. I am strong, in every sense of the word and that is amazing...

I look next to me at crossfit last night and the room is filled with people that I love. My Adaline, who is doing "box jumps" and wanting to pick up the bar. At home she does "exercises" and tells everyone when she grows up shes going to "ecessercise like Momma". She has little pink dumbells, and thinks jump roping is the coolest thing ever, and dangg that girl can squat. My heart swells up with pride. My child has looked at me and seen the positive example I am setting every day and she wants to be strong!! The room is filled with people that love me and my beebe...other women that want to be strong. Those same girls that were next to me in highschool killing themselves, literally, to fit into the size 00 jeans at Weathervane. Now here we all are with chalk on our hands, hair thrown up on top of our heads, squating down to pick up a bar with 200+ pounds on it. Clearly still looking like divas while doing it...I mean obviously. Now when we stand in the mirror we flex our muscles insead of pinching our non-existent fat. Yes I flex in the mirror...every morning.  Now as grown women we are inspired by, and inspiring eachother to be strong! To pick up that weight that we would have never even thought we could...to love ourselves, to challenge ourselves every day to do better, be stronger.

I look in the mirror now at my obnoxiously large calves, my big booty and my ridiculiously thick thighs and I LOVE them! They are powerful. They are strong. They allow me to squat hundreds of pounds. They allow me to run, to walk, to carry my child AND the groceries. They are the base to my entire exsistence, every functional movement we make every day uses our legs. That is a heavy load they need to carry, I am grateful for my legs some people might call "big" or "fat" because they are strong!

The point I am trying to make is what if instead of teaching girls that skinny  scrawny frames with clothes draped off them and hip bones pertruding from their waistbands was sexy...What if we tought girls that STRONG IS SEXY. We are the women who will shape the next generation. Their self esteem, their values, the way they see themselves. What if they based their self worth on the amount of push-ups, or how strong their back squat is instead of the number on the inside of their jeans! Would that be the worst thing in the world? I want my daughter to be strong, I see the way picking up heavy things and puting them down has changed my outlook on physique and life in general in just two short months...I want her to grow up with a strong spirit, a strong body...I want her to love herself. I want her to be proud of who she is and what she is capable of. Not be proud that she starved herself and can now finally fit into a pair of size 0 pants!!!