Road to 26.2
Thursday, January 30th- 2 weeks and 2 days until my body is bad ass enough to run 26.2
“You must be so skinny, running all those miles!” Yes. I have trained for two years, and six days a week for the past five months to just lose weight. What? Isn’t there more?
I have been invited by countless well-meaning women to join their shake company, try their supplements, join their weight loss accountability group, try their proven fitness methods to lose that last ten pounds, as if there is something magic in a quick fix, as if I need to be fixed. I have been told that I’m bulky, that I have bulked up, that I don’t look like a runner, as if all my training for years has been to impress someone else. I’ve been asked if the food I’m eating is because it’s a cheat meal, as if adultery is the same thing as consuming fuel.
Why is this behavior still considered ok? Why is this general idea that women’s bodies need to constantly be fixed? What if the next greatest diet isn’t the answer? What if none of these fads really work?
What if what really creates sustainable and healthy change starts on the inside, sis?
What if we love ourselves so much that we heal our mind to think positively? What if we care so much about our spirit that we take time to nourish our connection to something larger than ourselves? What if we love our body, our only Earthly shell, so much that we move it everyday and challenge to make it stronger? What if we love ourselves so much that we surround ourselves with people who love us and build us up?
What if we heal ourselves so that we think, move, act, and fuel ourselves with love and respect?
Isn’t that what really works? That sounds a whole lot harder than two shakes a day. That also sounds like healing generational wounds of body image and disrespect that has run rampant through our society and families.
Y’all, it is 2020. We have self-driving cars, flying robots, and computers in our pockets. The constant conversation of women’s bodies has done worn out. Our value in the world extends beyond what our bodies look like and produce. It is not our moral obligation to be small, eat less, take up less space, or BE less. A great majority of the diet culture; the shake companies, ‘accountability’ groups, fitness groups, cleanse ambassadors, intermittent fasting gurus, etc… exist only to perpetrate this idea that women need to be smaller to be of greater value.
This shit stops with us. We will not tell our daughters to lose weight before Prom. We will not talk negatively about other women’s bodies or our own. We will not set an example of anything less than a strong human who is doing her damn well best. We are better than that. We are stronger than that. We all deserve more than that. We collectively deserve to heal the wound of women’s body image issues in our culture. We deserve health without the backdrop of weight loss. We deserve to be whole.
Xo,
Ellie
Ellie Schreiner's Blog 