What Every Woman Wants

It is turned out to be quite the beautiful spring day in FL today! I hope you're getting some of this beautiful weather too. But as beautiful as it is outside doesn't mean I'm feeling up to that level today! I have been pretty frustrated lately. With myself in general I guess. I have been on & off trying to lose some weight in the past couple of months. I do really good for a few days & then I completely bomb. Anyone else have this problem? (If you say no you're lying!) Every woman wants to lose weight or in some way change their body. Its like a sickness. Especially among women. I've wrote about body image before in this post. Most women hate on their body's every single day.
I read this post today on The Huffington Post. Its about a video of a spoken word poem of a girls day to day thoughts about her body. "She reminds us that practicing body positivity is a daily process, and having occasional (or daily) doubts about our self-image does not mean we have failed ourselves -- or each other -- in the ongoing crusade for body acceptance."
 I am the worst about getting down on myself because I "messed up my diet" for that day. So then begins the cycle. I ate something bad one day so I say oh well and continue to eat bad. Then a few days later I'll try to start again. I am SO SICK of this cycle. I don't want to be on a "diet". I just want to make better choices. Have a healthier lifestyle. Eat healthy & work out. This is my goal. Not to yoyo diet. But just to be healthy.
I am not trying to get a "thigh gap" screw you society and your thigh gap! (Now that we have cleared the air on my thoughts on that issue.) I don't want to super skinny or whatever. I just want to be the best version of myself. I don't want to be a nazi about my food either though. I don't want to feel guilty when I have a cupcake. Its all about finding a balance.
My friend Hannah and I have been really trying to motivate each other. We tell each other when we didn't eat the donuts in our office or when we had a water instead of a coke. We are each others accountability partner. This has really been helping me a lot. I need someone to do this along side of me. & who better than my best friend. A little motivation can go a long way.

What are your motivation tools? Do you struggle with body image?

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"It’s actually more acceptable to insult your body than to praise it..."

How sad is that?.... But so true. Am I right? Take a second and think how many times a day you critique yourself in the mirror.... Or you think "only if I could lose this much more weight"...... "I hate the way I look today"... "if I could look like that I would be happy".... I know I am guilty of these on a daily basis. As women we are always comparing ourselves to other women. We constantly are thinking about how we look. We are more than likely bashing ourselves in our inner monologue that plays out all day.

Glamour recently did a study on women and body image. They found that 97% of women will be cruel to their bodies today. "Our research found that, on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts daily-nearly one for every waking our."...  How did this happen?! How did we become so down on ourselves? You could blame the media, Hollywood's obsession with being thin... Our society has become OBSESSED with media. TV, the movies, social media, magazines etc. & out of every media source comes the story of how this star keeps in tip top shape, how she immediately bounced back from having a baby, the next fad diet etc etc etc. Its everywhere. Body image is always right in our face. Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being health conscious, exercising, healthy eating etc. We should be concerned with these things. You should always be striving to improve yourself, your lifestyle. But when it becomes an unhealthy obsession, when you are constantly critiquing yourself which turns into bashing yourself, something needs to change.

Lets start appreciating our bodies. The female body is amazing. I mean come on, we birth children! Stop yourself when you have those inner self bashing thoughts. Take care of your body. Check yourself out in the mirror and say "Dang girl you look good today!" Be confident! Just be nicer to yourself, to your body. You do not have to be a size 2 to be beautiful. You do not have to have perfect hair, perfect skin, the perfect outfit. There is no such thing as perfect! Just be yourself. Be your own kind of beautiful.