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Positively Weightless

A healthy life not only means physically healthy, but mentally as well. Healthy eating, healthy exercising habits, and a positive attitude are all important and help maintain balance in life. I decided to combine my love of writing and my positivity to change the world in hopes that any reader can also become positively weightless, and lead them to a healthy life.

My page is all about positivity, loving yourself, and getting healthy all in unison with each other. I myself am going through a journey and have been for a number of years with all three of those topics. Throughout this blog I always do my best to stay pretty neutral and not really dive into controversial topics. Sure I share my opinions on things, but I have always done this in a pretty careful way. Today's post is going to be incredibly different for me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about it. I wanted to share what might be an unpopular opinion on a pretty controversial topic right now; the body positivity movement.

In the simplest of terms, the body positivity movement is all about self-love and loving the skin you're in. The leaders are all about loving yourself no matter what weight, race, height, disabilities, etc. you are/have. It promotes positivity and not finding your worth through how you appear on the outside. This all seems great right? Of course it is, but once you start to dive a little deeper into the movement you see it isn't exactly the positive space it appears to be at first glance. I wanted to briefly discuss my thoughts and feelings on the topic. I am not going to go too deep into the movement itself. To be quite frank I am not the kind of person that is going to name any social media influencers either. I just don't think dropping names is really necessary. What I can do is give an overall picture and share my thoughts and feelings.

So let's get into the positives of the movements first. Although this movement is about all kinds of bodies, the overall focus is about overweight and obese bodies. I myself as any followers of this page know am obese. I am not afraid to say that, and I also agree that that word does not define who I am. I think that the overall message is great. As someone who really struggled with my self-image for most of my life, I completely understand it. I think a movement to promote acceptance for people no matter what their shape and size is great. A big aspect is also saying that the number on the scale does not define you. Also something I highly agree with. I think fad diets, detox teas, crazy workout programs, etc. are all unnecessary marketing schemes that overall just wreck havoc on self-esteem if we don't have a body of a model. In a world that is full of constant reminders to have the "ideal body," I think it is great to promote a movement that helps us truly love ourselves inside and out no matter how we look. Unfortunately, some of the influencers take things to an extremely toxic level.

To give a little background on my history with this movement, I used to follow a number of body positivity influencers on Instagram. I would love the post of girls with bodies that weren't picture "perfect" (Remember beauty is subjective!) with the self-love inducing captions. Before long, however, I started to see just how toxic the captions and comments were. Many of them make it seem as if eating a healthy diet and exercising are a betrayal to your self-love. Fad diets are one thing, but eating sensibly and finding exercise you love to do and enjoy is another. It got to the point where I would read a comment or caption and actually feel guilty for going to the gym that day or for enjoying a nice healthy dinner that I logged the calories for. I ended up unfollowing every body positive influencer I followed on Instagram for this reason. It was just as much of a mind game reading those comments making me feel guilty for forming healthy habits as it would be seeing a supermodel advertising craving crushing lollipops. Although this does not go for every single person in the movement, I saw a pretty alarming amount of toxicity.

So overall what are my thoughts? I would say I am pretty much in the middle. I have always said that the number on the scale does not reflect your self-worth. I always say we should love ourselves no matter what skin we are in. You can have the reddest, shiniest, prettiest apple in your hands but when you take a bite find the inside is rotten. The inside is what counts the most when defining who you are. That also goes for our health. Yes, I am obese, and I love myself. Sure I still have days where I don't like my body, but it is still a work in progress. I love myself enough though to try and lose weight and get healthier. I don't think anyone should be shamed for doing so. Just because I want to lose weight for my health, that does not mean I hate the state my body is in right now. To be quite frank spreading a message that it is okay to eat junk all the time and live with incredibly unhealthy habits (like a number of these influencers do) is just dangerous. Sure I believe in enjoying things in moderation, but your health should come first. There are a number of reasons obesity is not healthy and can lead to a number of health problems. It is okay to love yourself and still strive to make healthy changes so you can live an even longer life. My lifestyle is still a work in progress but I do it because I want to live the best and longest possible life with the ones I love that I can. In my opinion any movement that offers hate on the opposite side of the spectrum is just as toxic.

I would love to hear your opinions on the topic! Let me know in the comments!
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Well here I am back in action! If you read my page but don't follow any of my social media you may have been wondering where I was last week. No, I did not take another week off to binge watch another Netflix original. As you may remember my previous post was written on my computer at work. My laptop was in the shop, so I had to improvise. Well a few days after that I got my laptop back only to have it crash 24 hours later. Unfortunately, I did not have time to type one up at work that time. After talking to some friends and family, I came to the conclusion that my best option was going to be to buy a new one. So here I am, first blog post on the new computer! 

I bet you are wondering how I am going to tie that into todays post (since we all know that is exactly how I do things around here). Well, as I am sure you can guess the second time, my other laptop crashed I was pretty frustrated and sad about it. When I say I was ready to throw the thing across the room, I am not even exaggerating! I was venting about it to many people and with that came some pretty solid advice. I was told I should let things that were out of my control go. Yes maybe something I did on that laptop was the actual cause. I had a firewall and always try not to go to any sites that are not trustworthy, but it is possible I picked up a virus. That, however, wasn't the point of that argument. The fact of the matter was that my laptop needed to be replaced. In that moment in time that was completely out of my control. Once I understood that I felt better about the situation. I also then got pretty excited about the fact that I was getting a brand-new computer out of it.

So how does that tie into life? Well plenty of ways! I think a big one is losing your job. We all know how scary of a time that was for me two summers ago. I had recently leased a brand-new car and worried about how I was going to pay for it along with my other responsibilities. I did my very best not to let it consume my life. I, of course, spent the summer looking for jobs, sending my resume around, going on awkward interviews. I also used the time to enjoy the summer. Funny enough I ended up starting the job I am at now about mid-way through September so it was like I had adult summer vacation. What I didn't do (at least for the most part) was sit around and dwell on the fact that I lost my job. I was unemployed and no amount of anger and frustration at the company that laid me off was going to change that. In my case it was from a lack of business and the company needed to cut costs. I knew it wasn't because of my work. It 100% was out of my control so I knew I needed to let it go and move on. I can honestly say as many of you likely can already guess that they did me a favor. Something so much better came along and I am so incredibly happy in the position I am in now.

Work isn't the only example though of course. So many things in life cause pain or sadness. The death of a loved one, money issues, breaking something irreplaceable, etc. The list could go on and on. Yes, some of these things have no silver lining. There isn't much of a silver lining if you accidently shatter a glass Christmas ornament that was a family heirloom. I can't think of one single example of a silver lining that would come out of that. The most important thing to remember when that happens is that the memories will never go away. Just because you broke a belonging of someone that is no longer with you, it does not erase the memories. Those live on in your heart. It is also, however, important to always remember that dwelling and sulking are also not going to solve anything. Just realize that even if it was your fault that it broke, it is now completely out of control. We cannot go back in time and change our actions. Trust me there are plenty of outfits I would go back and change on my school picture days if that were the case. You can only move forward. What kind of life are you going to live if you are looking back in the past wishing it could change?

Maybe people in your past treated you poorly, and you dwell on that. Focus on the people that love you now and look forward to the memories that you have made and will make with them. Maybe you didn't take college seriously, and your GPA wasn't where you wanted it to be. That also cannot be changed so just look forward. Maybe like me you look at a picture of yourself in 2014 and cringe at how thin you plucked your eyebrows. It was in the past so leave it there! Move forward instead of just existing in your life. Do things that scare you and live with no regrets. We all feel regret sometimes, but what is important is allowing yourself to feel that way just long enough to process, then let it go. There is absolutely no good that will come out of dwelling on the things we cannot change.
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Well today’s post was completely unplanned and the topic is pretty much writing itself for me. Let me explain here. I overall have a strict Sunday routine. I always do my laundry on Sundays, meal prep, and write my blog a few hours before I schedule it to post. That has been my routine for well over a year now. Well even though this is going to be posted as normal on Sunday, I am writing it on a Thursday. Here I am using my lunch break at work to make sure I keep to my posting schedule. The reason for this is because my laptop decided to stop working a few nights ago. It is being looked at now, but I had to improvise a bit to post today!

So how will I turn this into a topic for my blog you may ask? Well I think that is one of the things I do best personally. Take events or themes from my everyday life and find a way to write about them in a way that spreads positivity. Well writing on a different computer while using my lunch break is certainly an adjustment. I know that keeping up with my blog is important to me (yes, even if I did skip a week recently to watch Stranger Things). One of my first thoughts when my laptop went down was my blog and how that was going to change my posting abilities. It is important to me, so I found a way to make it work. Luckily, I have access to other resources to do so. Although I am not happy about it, I had to make some adjustments to make it work.

Sometimes in life we do need to make some adjustments. Another great example would be your diet. There are plenty of reasons people would adjust their diet. Maybe it is to lose weight. Maybe it is because certain foods cause you discomfort and just overall make you feel horrible. Maybe there is a more serious reason such as a diagnosis of a health condition causing you to cut certain foods out. There are a ton of reasons. This week I decided to adjust my diet as well (total coincidence). As any of you that read my page weekly will know I loved doing the Whole30 diet. Both times I completed it I wanted to continue the rules into my everyday life. What I ended up finding out is that once I allowed myself to have the foods I couldn’t I kind of lost control. I didn’t binge or anything like that, but I just figured out that the Whole30 is way too restrictive for me personally. What I have decided to do is adjust my diet in stages. This week I have been cutting out dairy where I can and I vowed to have a vegetable with every single meal. The vegetables are an obvious choice, and the reasoning behind dairy is I just feel there are plenty of better alternatives I can use in its place. I definitely won't be cutting it out fully though. Once that adjustment is more of a habit then I will move onto the next. Adjustments are just fine with the food you eat if it is doable for you!

I think another big type of adjustment in your life comes to relationships. Sometimes the relationship we have with someone changes. Actually, I suspect it is most of the time. Friends are a lot easier to keep in touch with when we are in our early 20's with no spouse or kids. Situations and circumstances are constantly changing. I personally see no problem with adjusting your relationships. Maybe you have a friend you used to see every week that now you can only see a few times a year. Maybe you and your significant other have conflicting work schedules and you hardly have one on one time anymore. These are pretty large adjustments yes, but they are all for a good purpose. Isn’t seeing your friend a few times a year better than not seeing them at all? Isn’t hardly seeing your spouse because of conflicting work obligations leading to a more stable future? As long as the people you love are in your life to some degree, I would say you are still very lucky!

Overall, I would say that life in general is all about adjustments. Life would be completely boring if it always went 100% according to plan. That is the beauty of life though, that we get to just pick right up and move on even if it is on a completely different path than we thought. Trust me, I am one of the most habitual people in the world I would say. I go to work, go to the gym, I go home and eat dinner, shower, then go on my computer for a few hours before bed. Every. Single. Night. I am not too big on adjusting my life, but I adapt when I need to. Isn’t adjusting yourself better than just sulking anyways?
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About me




29 years old. Graduate from Buffalo State College with my B.A. in English. I am just looking to hopefully change the world through my love of writing and my positive attitude.

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