Until recently, if anyone had asked me to describe my body I could have come up with a lot of words but 'AMAZING' would not have been one of them. Over the years I have not treated my body kindly. Whether it's the excessive alcohol consumption or yo-yo dieting. Worse than anything is the way I have talked about my body. I have called it so many nasty names - 'fat', 'flabby', 'ugly' - that it's a wonder it's stuck with me so long.
A couple of weeks ago I had a change. It was such a brief moment but an extraordinary one. During my personal training session I did a military press with the heaviest weight I'd ever used. I did it without really thinking (that's not to say it wasn't hard!) but as I put the kettlebell down it dawned on me how far I'd come. When I started using kettlebells I'd struggled to press even the lightest weight and there I was pressing an absolute beast. As I had that realisation I felt, strong, powerful and like the most incredible human on the planet. I felt fierce. (See below for a visual representation of how fierce I felt.)
This immense superhuman strength has not come overnight. It's been a long journey and along the way, my body has changed (gotten older!) and my weight has gone up and down ( and back up again! -see comment about yo-you diets!) but through all of that, what's happened is my body has gotten gradually stronger. While I was busy calorie counting and watching the scales I'd missed this incredible transformation that had gone on.
As I walked away from this PT session I kept turning those feelings over. I was talking taller and stronger, feeling like I had the most incredible body in the world. It was the same body I'd called fat as I'd pulled my leggings over my tummy getting dressed that morning. So what was the change? It was one tiny, but powerful moment when my mind had stopped focussing on what my body looked like and was completely mesmerised by what I could do.
I thought about other times my body had felt this powerful. When I ran my longest ever distance. The first time I swung a kettlebell. Every time I complete a Turkish Get Up. Giving birth. All of these are things my body has been able to do.
If we want more moments of feeling like our bodies are amazing we need to fill our lives with opportunities to celebrate our bodies' achievements.
My body is AMAZING.
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