Learning to Love My Body One Day at a Time

I wake up every morning and proceed with my typical routine: go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, wash my face, put my contacts in and lift my shirt up to see the damage of yesterday.  I pinch, I squeeze, I flex, and then I shrug my shoulders in disgust. 
 
The reason for this is very simple: I have an obsession with how flat my stomach is. 
 
It’s not like I have ever been overweight and it’s not like my family has a history of obesity.  However, around the time the Gwen Stefani Hollaback Girl video came out, I became obsessed with wanting a flat stomach. 
 
I’ve tried to kick this habit of what I like to call “checking” several times to no avail.  So, it came as no surprise to me when I was reading a recent issue of Glamour that around 97% of women are cruel to their bodies on a daily basis.  According to the survey, young women averaged around 13 brutal thoughts about their body on a daily basis. 
 
I wish I could say that after reading the article I immediately felt that I needed to change my ways and start loving my body, but rather, I felt reassured because there were other people out there who struggled with similar feelings of constant defeat (misery loves company, right?).  After all, I figured that if all of these women were feeling the same way, then this must just be something that is very normal for women.  But after talking to one of my friends about the article, I realized how ignorant I sounded. 
 
Clearly, I know that hating how I look will not make me any thinner and I also know that hating my body will just lead to other destructive behavior that can potentially be detrimental to my health.  So, I decided that in order for me to ever truly love my body, I needed to figure out what exactly triggered me to start hating how I looked.  I decided that for one day, I would write down every single time I started to feel badly about how I looked and what situation I was in when these thoughts crept into my head.

Here are some of the most common things I found:

1. I found myself pinching my stomach or checking it in the mirror after I would have a meal that I deemed to be unhealthy.
2. I tended to get really insecure on the days I didn’t make it to the Plex.
3. When I would see another girl who seemed to have a flatter stomach than me, I would get incredibly insecure.
4. When one of my roommates would talk about what they did at the Plex, I immediately felt as if my workout was inadequate. 
5. When I would be sitting down for a long time doing homework.
6. Stress.

I then decided that the following day I would write down everything that made me feel good about myself, which hopefully would make me forget about the negatives of the day before. 

Here are some of the things that make me completely forget about my insecurities and let me completely let my guard down.

1. 1. Laughing with my friends.
2. Putting 110% into my workouts.
3. Helping friends.
4. Talking to my family.
5. Talking with my roommates.
6. Getting good grades on an exam or paper.
7. Going up the Million Dollar Stairs without getting winded.
8. Kissing the guy I actually really like.
9. Feeling strong after accomplishing something new during a workout.
10. Listening to a new song on repeat that makes it hard to not start dancing.

Luckily, there are a lot more things that make me feel secure and confident about my body, which prevents me from being cruel to my body 24/7.  I know that bashing my body is not a good habit.  In fact, I know that it’s terrible and something that I need to stop doing sooner rather than later.  However, after taking the first step of recognizing what causes me to feel insecure, I feel that in time I will be able to change my thinking so that I only focus on the things that make me feel like the confident, attractive girl that deep down I know that I am. 
 
After all, my body is not what defines me; my character does.  My body (or the size of my stomach) does not make me a better, nicer, more fun, happier person.  And I know that if I keep that mentality in the back my mind, I will eventually be able to wake up in the morning and skip the last step of my routine. 
 
Photo Sources:
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