What I saw today was a post of this beautiful woman. Slim, strong, athletic and amazing. She looked absolutely INSANE... and that was just her 'before' photo. Her after photo showed an even slimmer girl, even stronger, more athletic... a little more amazing.
I definitely was not the only one who had noticed this. The comments were overflowing with praise, compliments and support. 'Awesome transformation.' 'Amazing'. 'Wow, this is motivation'. This was a beautiful thing to see - women supporting other women, mutual support, love, girl power!!! However, among all this, two other comments caught my attention...
1) 'I think I look more like photo one and it makes me think... should I go to the gym too and lose some weight, maybe I am chubby. Other girls often think the same'.
2) 'To any girl who sees this on their explore page - it is ok if you do not look like the girl on the right. It is definitely ok if you do not even look like the girl on the left. It is absolutely fine if you do not enjoy working out. What is not fine is feeling bad about yourself after seeing fitness pages pop up on your news feed. Everyone is different, everyone is beautiful. Whether we work out, whether we eat fast food or organic food, whether we are tall, short, thin or chubby. Everyone is perfect the way they are'.
I do not want to create a controversial blog post. I do not to say that any of these comments were right or wrong - because none of these comments are. I especially do not want to say that this girl should not post about her lifestyle, because she should - and girlie I see you and your aesthetically pleasing abs... you keep going, keep on doing you! But I do think there are some things we need to discuss about transformation Tuesdays...
The term 'transformation' is such an ambiguous term. What we see on our Instagram feeds is merely the physical component of the transformation. However, there are so many other aspects that go along with the transformation. What goes with the perfect new physique that you are staring at is a change so much greater than your eyes can perceive. Hours of training or exercise, which for some may have involved training themselves to love, or even tolerate, that exercise. Change to lifestyle factors - saying no to their favourite dinner or dessert once more often than they did before. Banishing the burgers, cutting the chips. We definitely should praise these people. It IS NOT easy to get up, get going and not have the incentive of our favourite comfort food waiting for us on a cool autumn evening. These are all things that, in my opinion, go alongside a transformation, and this is what I want to talk about today. I'll use the example of myself, for demonstration purposes. but please be kind, because this makes me kind of nervous and vulnerable, but here goes nothing...
This is a photo of me, arguably at the fittest I have ever been in my life. I could run a 5K without much effort, I ate broccoli at least 6 days of the week (to be fair, I still do, I just really like broccoli), the only clothes I really wore other than my gym wear was my work uniform (and I probably would have worn them even there if I could have)!
Sometime around March 2015 I, at the age of 18, went on the first ever diet of my life. I suppose I was quite lucky to get even that far without feeling the burden of what it meant to gain an extra pound, or having never worried about upgrading my meal to a king size. I perceived my size 8 - 10 frame as good enough. Then, almost out of nowhere, one day it wasn't enough anymore. Somehow I suddenly caught this bug of wanting to be a better version of myself, so that's what I did. For the first time in my life I bought myself a gym membership, took control of my own cooking so I could pay just a little more attention to the things I ate, and my own journey began.
I had fun! I had always loved to cook - so swapping cheesed stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon for healthy stir fries or fish and cous-cous concoctions was no problem. I enjoyed exploring. I loved the exercise too. My best friend was my fitness partner and we had so much fun, laughing our way through running, giggling our way through rowing, smiling through the sit ups.
I saw changes quickly. The bigger sizes in my wardrobe rapidly became obsolete very. By our girls holiday that June I comfortably fit into size 6s of retailers that I had previously deemed 'very ungenerous' with their clothes sizing. I was thin, I was healthy and I was happy. And I was proud of myself... because I had made myself a promise and I had seen it through. I had put in the work and I had seen the progress.
But here is where the problems came. Here's where the transformation becomes more than just physical. I knew how to get thin, how to get fit. I did not know how to maintain it. I knew that, to become this new version of myself, I had to move more, eat less (or, if not necessarily less, at least different). What I had learned over those few short months was a whole new lifestyle, a whole new mind set. I had created this new person almost entirely.
Of course I wanted to maintain my new self, I had put in all that hard work and graft, but I knew nothing of maintenance, only of change... and that's what continued to happen. I simply continued in my ways with all the new habits I had formed - exercise at the gym at least 3 times a week, control portion sizes, don't eat out too often, don't have the chocolate bar today, don't forget the calories in alcohol too. So my body continued to change and what I had forgotten was that these were the habits that had been used with the intention to diet. But here was my dilemma. I only knew of my previous lifestyle, which would revert me back to my former self, undo all my hard work, OR my new lifestyle, which was the consequence of dieting behaviour, but was 'on the safe side'.
What had happened to me, along with my physical transformations, was a whole load of other transformations that I had not even noticed running up alongside me.
1) A cognitive transformation - The way I thought about the things I ate, a sudden categorisation of foods that were acceptable for everyday and foods that were acceptable for some days. A mind set I had been exempt from before. The way I thought about exercise and its need to be incorporated into everyday of my life. I had a whole new love of exercise, which, upon reflection could have been for two reasons. Firstly, I had never really given myself the opportunity to explore exercise before (simply because I had always been told I wasn't the 'sporty' type). By exploring something new I found a new love. Alternatively, my love of exercise may have been the result of conditioning. A consequence of a love that was evoked by loving the changes I saw in myself and not being able to separate the two. My mindset, my cognitions, to so many aspects of my life had changed alongside my dress size.
2) A lifestyle transformation - The things I could and could not do. A weekly trip to an ice cream parlour, an twice a week drinking session with a greasy takeaway to celebrate making it to the early hours of the morning, fortnightly takeaway night. I had been cutting these things out for so long, I took for granted not to do them anymore. My new abs brought with them new habits. This has been functional to helping with a diet, but it wasn't functional to my everyday life.
3) Treatment transformation - The way people treated me. Sometimes this made me very uncomfortable. People had pointed out I lost weight, how good I looked - they were complimenting me but I did not know whether to perceive it as an insult... had I not looked good before? I only ever set out to make minor improvements, small alterations, a little bit of editing. This only made me more self-conscious to not return to the way I had been before. A few people pointed out 'how good I was at eating' - as if there was a way to be bad at eating, like it is not just something we do to survive, like I was eating my ham and lettuce sandwich, apple and banana not out of enjoyment for those foods but for some other reason, when I had given up my intention to diet long ago.
So these things held hands and stood there alongside my physical transformation. Had I had used the #transformationtuesday hashtag at this point, I might have know that I wasn't just referring to my toned body. So many other things had changed... There's sometimes so much more to a transformation Tuesday that you can even know with one quick look. And while some of the transformations I had made were making me happy, others were not, and they had to change regardless of the other changes that may make as a knock on effect.
All of the above is why I have carefully chosen those two comments to discuss today.
Comment number one resounded with me because I know what it's like to feel like your 'before' was not good enough. I was always careful not to post a before and after post. Partly, because I felt like my 'before' did not matter, I was quite content and preoccupied with my present self. But to some people, your before is THEIR goal, and I think we all need to be mindful of that. I think this is the small issue with #transformationtuesdays and perhaps, instead, fitness bloggers, food bloggers and all instagram users alike should instead opt for a hashtag like #celebrationsaturday.
#CelebrationSaturday - where we all just post a bad ass, sexy selfie of ourselves as we currently are. Maybe because that's the consequence of a change we worked damn hard for, or because we have the strength to love ourselves exactly how we are today, right here, right now... and to know that both is fine... if you're good enough for you, then you're good enough for me too, but the former is ALWAYS more important.
It took me a really long while to shake peoples' comments, they created an imaginary fear of being like the girl I once knew. 'Oh my goodness, you're so skinny now'. (I met the criteria of a typically 'skinny person before). 'Oh wow, you look SO good'. (I didn't know I didn't before - but thanks for telling me). 'WOW, you look incredibly healthy'. (Eating my Mum's hearty home-cooked dinner's was healthy too, my mindset before was happy and healthy too, and as far as I am aware - I had no critical or lifestyle disadvantaging conditions then either). I LIKED the girl I once knew. Yes, I was proud of the girl who could run a 5K, or jog for an hour without stopping... but I was also very impressed by the girl who could out eat almost any guy at a burger restaurant, whose Sunday roast dinner portions were as big as her two brothers.
My point here is about compromise. Make sure that you're EVERY version of yourself that you like. The greatest extremes of my transformation left me cutting out factors of my life that I did not enjoy, not doing things because I felt like I could not do them. So I do not look EXACTLY like the girl in the photograph now... but I look close enough, and I'm twice as happy as she is! Do not let one transformation dictate another, one that you do not necessarily want to make.
I want to address the second comment I referred to now. It actually spoke to me so loudly that I felt compelled to message this young woman, a totally stranger, to tell her how I felt about her comment. How truly RIGHT she is! If you look like the woman in the transformation photo that is great, if you look like the woman in her before photo that is great, if you look like the person in the photo you just took of you damn self - EVEN BETTER, you look GREAT!
You look your best when you're doing you, being you. If you don't work out, that IS fine. There was a stage when I felt guilty, LAZY, for not completing my weekly workouts. I personally cannot stand these 'what's your excuse' campaigns. Work out when 1) you have time, 2) when you do not have other priorities, 3) when you actually feel like it and think 'hey, that would be fun and I would enjoy doing that with my time today'! Here's a whole bunch of valid excuses for not working out today - I had to study, I had to work, there was a book I was enthralled by, I had to take care of the children, I had to take care of ANYONE, I was busy taking care if myself, I am sick, I am too tired, I had family issues, I just want to spend quality time with my family, I had other priorities, I just don't feel like it today, I absolutely HATE exercise.
My exercise this week might entail an outdoor run, because I'm the girl who enjoys nature. If I go to the gym my primary goal will probably be to laugh with my best friend until my stomach hurts and not stay there until my tummy is more toned. Do it if you ENJOY it. Here's something that always makes me laugh - they say you will live a longer life if you spend more time exercising, but what if that extra time is just the time you invested into exercising (and if you really, truly didn't like it) then what's the point? I get it probably doesn't work out exactly, just a funny thought...
Whatever you eat is fine. I am never going to eat avocado on toast in order to 'be healthier' because I DO NOT LIKE avocado... and if I don't feel happy about what I just ate, I am probably going to eat something else. Eat a carrot, eat a chocolate bar, have a banana or a burger. It doesn't matter.
What you do in your free time is fine. Climb a mountain, run laps, read a book, invest in your favourite TV series. The healthiest thing you can do is enrich your beautiful mind and whichever one of the above gets your brain ticking... DO IT MORE! 'To be healthy as a whole, mental wellness plays a role'.
However you look is MORE than fine. In fact, you look great. Apparently the average clothes size for a woman in the UK is 16. The year is 2016 - why does that mean ANYTHING? Average is such a social construct these days that if somebody asked you to describe 'average' what would it even mean? Besides, 90% of us spend our whole lives trying to be something other than average anyway. AND on that note, who on Earth thought that they could take people, beautiful, rich in personality and life individuals, and start describing them with a number, with quantitative data. I'm sorry, but the label doesn't fit if you do not want to wear it.
I know this blog post is lengthy. So if you're still reading thank you. I feel like we've shared a lot and I appreciate you listening to both my personal story and my rant. I'm nearly done now, I promise...
(Also, if you're skim reading this blog or want a condensed version this is probably the bit you should jump to).
I don't think we should completely abolish #transformationtuesday but I think we should all be real about it. Let's discuss the changes we made to get there. The pros and the cons. All the transformations we made. Maybe we look damn good today, but we're super sad because we didn't get cheese and bacon on our chips when we really wanted to.
Let's celebrate our transformations when they're where we want to be - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually... everything from our crunches in the gym to crunching down on that extra tasty pizza. Let's praise the people who have transformed themselves and their lives to get where they want to be, BUT let's not forget to praise the people who learned the magic behind accepting themselves exactly the way they are because they are already good enough (it's an incredible skill, you know)... something some of us are still yet to learn, something that, even at my 'physical best' I still had not done, I still had a bigger transformation to make.
Let's praise transformations beyond what we can physically see - the girl or boys who transformed themselves and applied themselves to their studies, or gave back to the community and wanted to change the world, to the people who have overcome formed maladaptive or dysfunctional mind sets and become better people or just got themselves to exactly where they need to be...
Let's have a #celebrationsaturday where, gym wear or pyjamas, trainers or high heels, grapes or galaxy bars, squats or story books, we all just love exactly who we are, exactly where we are right now - because we've changed for the better, or because we've always been the same, and, because whether you're the former or the latter - you're good enough right now, you ALWAYS have been, and you sure as hell always will be.
Create the life you want to live and the you that you want to be. Take care of you. Don't change what is not broken.
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