Do You Like You?

I said in my first weight loss post that I have battled my weight & had a poor body image for most of my adult life.  Do you know why?  It's not because anybody ever treated me poorly or told me I was FAT or anything like that.  It is because of the images & ideas we are completely inundated with about beauty.  I remember when I was young having certain movie/TV stars & singers that I wanted to look like.  What I didn't realize at the time is that on the TV & magazine covers, we're only seeing them at their very BEST & perfect appearances.  Not only that, they have assistants & stylists that continue to perfect their look.   The problem is that our idea of what is physically beautiful has been so skewed & messed up by Hollywood's standards.  The magazines & photos that we see online are NOT REAL!!  There is a Facebook page that I follow called The Bright Side.  They recently shared an article that really opened my eyes.  The article is about the Photoshopping of photographs.  In this article they share images before & after photoshop.  I couldn't believe just how much editing was done to the images.  And what makes it sadder is that the editing was completely unnecessary. If you're interested in checking that article out, you can click HERE  

It is no wonder that we have people with eating disorders & people who hate the way they look.  We've all been told that we need to be a certain size & wear certain clothes & fix our hair & makeup to the point that most women are not even comfortable in their own skin.  It's such a shame.  Now, I'm sure you're thinking "well, you say all of that, but you still want to lose weight & look better."   You would be partially right.  I DO still want to lose more weight.  But I have finally reached an age where it isn't all about how I look.  Sadly, I had gotten really comfortable with being overweight.  I had tried (& failed) to lose the weight so many times, that I thought this was just my body now. I didn't want to be an unhealthy mom, but for so long I couldn't lose the weight.  Being over 40 has made me realize how fast time is passing & I do not want to spend the second half of my life overweight & unhealthy & unable to do certain things with my family.  I want to love me & love my body.  So, for me, now losing weight is more about getting & staying healthy.  It's not about how I look.  I wish our society would focus more on health & wellness instead of outward beauty.  This is something that Jim & I try to portray to our girls.  They both know & understand that we're trying to lose weight.  But we always talk to them about doing this for our health.  What they don't understand is that all of this is for our physical health, yes.  But also for our mental health.  ;) So, do you like you?  Something to think about.