For as long as I can remember I have always been aware of my weight and even though as a teenager I was severely overweight and unhappy, this did not stop me from sitting comfortably in a vicious cycle of over-indulgence and self-loathing.
As a child I'd always been the bigger girl with a huge appetite, surrounded by thinner children who mum said had 'good genes'. As children we are fed sweets on tap, and tend to grow up very unaware of the damage food can do to our bodies.
Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all... blah blah blah.
The importance of mirrors and reflection is something that stems back as early as our childhoods. From fairy-tales to that first moment we discovered our reflection as a baby, we have vastly become fascinated by self-monitoring.
Over the years our bodies change and when you make the change to begin a healthy lifestyle, it is easy to get caught up with monitoring progression and even easier to punish yourself if you aren't completely satisfied with what you see.
This week has been a week off work for me, which has given me a lot of time to focus on the quality of my training but also a lot of time to think - something that I'm not entirely sure is a good thing.
So this weekend I found myself surrounded by many different people at the Martial Arts/ Healthy Living Expo. As I walked round the many different stalls, I stumbled across a woman presenting a lecture on fear and how easy it can be for fear to completely take over our lives.
This got me thinking...
If someone had told me 3 years ago I'd be working out 5/6 times a week and wearing size 6 clothes I probably would have laughed in their face, laughed, carried on eating a Greggs pasty whilst telling myself that looks didn't matter anyway.
I can honestly say this isn't all about looks for me. Of course a proportion of leading a healthy life is for aesthetic reasons, but mine was more about regaining the control I had lost as a teenager when I started to let food rule my life.
For most people fitness is a journey. A journey of self-discovery which sees you push your body to limits you never thought possible. Unfortunately for some, fitness is a money-making goldmine and it is becoming more and more common for people to pray upon those most vulnerable by offering health services with minimal qualifications and understanding.
We come from a world of dissatisfied people and I am yet to meet a person 100% happy with their body. It is this constant dissatisfaction which leads many to seek advice in an attempt to gain body confidence.
Unfortunately with so many people offering different solutions, it is almost impossible for those without understanding to know where to turn.
As an overweight teenager I always dreamt of being thin. I obsessed over girls who could eat what they liked and skill maintain a slender figure. I even went as far as wishing so desperately to be skinny that every birthday I blew out my candles and said quietly in my head 'I wish I could be skinny'.
It upsets me to think how many girls are trapped in the ideology that thin is beautiful. It upsets me even more to think how much time and emotions I spent stressing over my own figure. Trapped in a vicious circle of comfort eating because I wasn't 'thin' which was then escalating the problem and sending me further and further away from where I wanted to be at the time.
