How can a woman not be on the body positivity train and the same time also not on the body shaming train? Simple I think most women in general were intrigued by this idea of body positivity, I know I was. In a way I still am because I personally believe that if I can not see my self as enough now. How will I be able to ever see myself as enough no matter if I lose the weight or not. When I started this blog, I did not want to be known for putting a lot of content out there about body positivity because once I started looking into the topic I actually became very concerned with what I was finding. What I had found was people who were not taking ownership of their bodies nor acknowledging certain facts. Before I go into that lets get something out of the way right now that might help you understand why I feel like I CAN say something about this. I am considered an obese woman. I am not shaming other women for their bodies in fact I will admit I have gotten inspiration for different ideas for style and such from Instagram influencers who are plus size. As a person who is obese, I understand that because of my size I am more susceptible to certain diseases. I also understand this is not shaming to me it is just a fact of life. I personally have accepted this, yet I see and hear about people across the western world who take this as shaming to them. What I am also noticing for myself as well as talked about by others is there is a psychological thing going on. Food for a good many is not just a source of nourishment, but a comfort. There is even a designation for some food as comfort food. Now I am not a psychologist and I am not going to analyze other people.
What I am going to do though is share my experiences, triumph, failures, how I am working on changing my relationship with food, as well as why I view my self as enough. I have tried several different diets in my life, Curves, South Beach, Keto, and Paleo. Each one I tried and each one I fell off the bandwagon, yet not with out learning some important information along the way. One thing was that there are different metabolic types, another is that in order to produce lasting results you have to actually make life style changes that will be permanent. Keto, and Paleo are both lifestyles, and to be honest both interesting lifestyles, but still to restrictive for me. Why? Because I use food as a crutch, as a comfort. Hey back to the psychological thing again. That is when I discovered intermittent fasting. Now I had heard of fasting before, and I had also heard of it in connection to Keto. This was different this was just eating between a certain time period, no restriction on what you could eat just eat between this time and this time. I gave it a shot and I saw some beginnings of results I had lost weight. Yay, but that was not the only thing, to be honest there were multiple benefits that I saw from it. It also would get me thinking as to what I was putting in my body and what my calorie intake was vs what I was using. Which to be honest brings us to today, I am still working on it. I still like to eat a lot, and I working on not using food as an emotional crutch. I do have alternatives that I am trying to use more often in place of food as a crutch. Am I still obese yes, even though I have done one of the steps in having a better relationship with food. I am not there yet; I still have a lot of work to do. Yet even though I am obese, and I have all this risks for certain health issues being obese. I see my beauty; I see my worth. If I cannot see my beauty and worth now, then when will it be enough for me to see it? That is what I mean when I say I am enough, I am beautiful, I am worthy. Therefore I am not body positive, that label is dangerous and very very polarizing. As I have seen people shamed for wanting to change by those who claim to be body positive. Yet I will not shame people because I do not know them. I do not know their journey. What I do know if you just like me are beautiful and you are enough.
Lemons or Lemonade 