Facebook flog - Jan 1 2014

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Jan 1 2014, 12:16
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's Facebook. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

It's New Year's Eve, time for us to take stock of the year, and plan for next. It's usually also the time when we make New Year's resolutions. A lot of our resolutions are going to be about physical issues. We'll resolve to hit the gym more, change our diet, start a diet, just eat better, fit into those jeans again, or put on enough weight to be healthy (yes, actually some people struggle to gain weight, and before you get all sarcastic about that problem, you can have just as many medical problems from being too under weight as over weight, just different sides of the same coin). I'll be doing my own gym and nutrition goals for 2014, but right now lets do something that doesn't usually go along with those kinds of goals - let's love ourselves just as we are. That's right, sure maybe my orthopedist has informed me that I need even more muscle around my joints to avoid surgery, but you know what? I love that I can walk, and run, and move. Would I like to lean down and see the abs that I've been working on in gym, sure, but not if it means losing all my curves. I'll be working this year to try and find a balance, but right now, this minute, I'm going to enjoy the roundness, the curves, the shape of me now. Just as, if you're thin and not so curvy you get to enjoy how lean and slender you look. It's all good! Setting our goals to be leaner, or more muscled, or have healthier diets, that's fine, but do it out of love, not hate. Too often I see people hating on themselves, hating how they look now, and never being happy with themselves no matter what size, or shape. Let's stop that, let's love ourselves right now, as we are, and then love ourselves as we work through the year. And while we're at it, no body shaming of anyone, okay? No snide remarks about people being too thin, or too fat, or too anything, be nice. Be nice to others and be nice to yourselves. Think what you like in your head, if you must, but out loud - be kind. Be kind to yourself and others, and lets see if we can enjoy working towards our goals in 2014, just a little bit more. Remember, if you don't love yourself before you put on that extra five pounds of muscle, you're probably not going to love yourself after you've muscled up, so start now, be happy now, and then you'll be at that healthy extra weight and be happier, too.

Comments

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Way to ruin what would have been a good message coming from anyone else by chiding us as if we're too stupid to figure this out without Marmie Laurell's sage wisdom. No using your own brain cells, okay kiddos?

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

My grumpy gif aside, she's right about us hating ourselves because we aren't perfect. In the words of Bill and Ted. Be excellent to each other. And party on dudes.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Well, hopefully there won't be anymore shaming skinny women IN HER OWN BOOKS from now on!

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

This, from the woman who wrote "Shutdown".

Also, the term "extra weight" makes me want to smash things. It reinforces the false idea that any weight over the bare minimum to survive is "extra". And I love how she has to specify "muscle". Five pounds of fat would not be forgivable I take it?

And I hate her use of "we". I do not make New Year's resolutions and never have. I do not diet and never have. You are not the sole measure of all things, LKH!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

It's so weird that this body acceptance post somehow still comes off as body shaming.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the "love your body regardless" message is a nice one but it falls flat to me because my body is crap. I've got so many things wrong with me it's almost ludicrous, and while I've learned to accept that, I sure as hell don't love the messed-up thing that is my body. I love me, on my good days, but that's different to loving my body. I don't know. I'm probably taking this the wrong way because I'm having pain flare-ups, but I'm getting really tired of being told I should love something that causes me pain and difficulty on a daily basis.