📷📷
This was my body a mere two or three months after the birth of my second child two years ago. I loved it. I weighed about 130 pounds and wanted to keep that weight on and see if I could turn some squish into muscle and of course keep the boobs!
Well my friends, as anyone who has ever had a baby has said, that doesn’t happen. My body has never been the same since the birth of my first child almost 15 years ago, but boy, did it shift a lot this time!
People would ask me after I had my first how I lost the 40 pounds I gained.
Genetics. To be fucking blunt, genetics. The weight just fell off. I was 21 years old, I still had elastin o-plenty in my skin. After a few years, you couldn’t even tell I ever had a baby.
Well, I had my second one a couple months before I turned 34 by way of c-section. Shit changes in your 30’s. I felt that before I even got pregnant. I was a little heavier when I got pregnant with Sofia (my second), weighing 115 pounds pre-pregnancy compared to 105 with Makayla (my oldest). I gained about the same amount of weight, so I almost got up to 160 pounds! But you couldn’t tell. I mean I could, but it looked like I was smuggling as basketball.📷
I embraced the weight gain. Perhaps that makes me lucky, that with each pregnancy I was told, “Go ahead and gain 40 pounds!” This doesn’t mean I was overly indulgent, though my pregnancy with Sofia proved to be much harder, so I drank Sprite almost daily to settle my belly.
So people, my whole life, have always commented on my weight. I have always been small naturally. In high school, strangers would ask if I ate food. Like if I asked a fat person if they ate a lot of donuts would that be rude? Of course it would, leave my fucking body alone too.
So since everyone had a fucking comment on my body, I developed quite a complex about it. There are some residual affects to this day. I almost feel like I’m going to get backlash for complaining from women who say, “oh whatever skinny bitch!” Believe me, I’ve gotten that from well meaning people as well.
And maybe that’s why after I had Sofia I hoped upon hope I could keep some of the squishiness I had acquired. I knew I was going to get the, “How did you just have a baby when you’re so skinny” comments.
Skinny is a bad word to me. I hate being skinny. I lift weights to not be a bag of bones, but to have some muscle tone and gain weight. I eat whatever the fuck I want not only because I know I can but because I have to. I have to eat to gain any weight and keep all you people off my back.
A few weeks, or maybe months ago it dawned on me that I really love my body now. Sure the 18 months of breastfeeding has left me literally nothing in that department but I love my thighs, legs and butt, and my arms. And my belly. Hell I even love not having boobs anymore. I fucking embrace it, no padded bras at all anymore.
Maybe it’s because I look at my daughters and think, man, how amazing is my body that it gave me them? My body gave birth, twice. How lucky am I that I was able to do that twice? I know of women who talk about loss and I think how fortunate I am that I was pregnant exactly twice with two healthy babies to show for it.
📷📷
Maybe it’s because I have a man who loves my body, no matter what shape it’s in.
Maybe it’s self acceptance that (hopefully) comes with getting older.
Maybe all the skinny girl haters out there will say, “easy for you to say!” Seriously, stop, I hate that shit.
Or maybe it’s because making someone else’s body your goal is stupid shit anyway. I’ve said it before, too, and I still look at girls on Instagram like, “dang how much do I have to lift and eat to get a butt like that?!” But I know it’s futile. First of all, there are so many angles you can pose in to get your butt to look bigger. Logically, I know this. But also those girls have an entirely different genetic code than I do.
And there’s filters, and photoshop….
And we’re all blessed. All of us.
I work out and do yoga because I believe it’s important to move your friggin body. Every damn day. Somehow, some way just move! That’s what it was meant to do, above all else. And it makes your brain feel better, too! How your looks when you start mindfully moving is a nice side effect, I’ll admit, but the most important thing is that you move with integrity in your body and love your body where it’s at.
And fuck the haters. The ones who say you’re too skinny, or you’re too fat, or you’re shaped weird, or flat chested, or have Nat-Geo boobs, or a big gut, or a flat ass, or a big nose, or whatever they want to say. That’s what I say anyway. I used to blame myself for being hated on and now I see that I bet those haters who gave me so much shit in high school were jealous (gag, I HATE even saying people were jealous of me, it’s not who I am).
Maybe someone is jealous of you too, but you’re so busy hating yourself you can’t see it.
I don’t know, maybe? Just my thoughts, don’t start the hate mail!