I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time. When I started this blog, I wanted to give insight into things that I like and that make me happy.  It hasn’t been super personal, but sometimes I think that getting your thoughts down, is the best way to start anew.  I’m sure as you start to get older you start to have realizations about yourself, the people around you, and the things that you want in life.  At what point do you take those realizations and change, or continue doing exactly what you’ve been doing. Every single person, full of wanderlust or not, craves and exists in some sort of routine.

For the past whatever it is many years (8?), I’ve been in this routine of body image negativity.  I don’t binge eat, I don’t have a history of eating disorders, I’m just your average girl who hates stepping onto the scale.  I love baking, cooking, and all good food.  I know that these things mean that I have to work out, so I do.  I eat right, but I can’t seem the shake whatever bad habits it is that keeps my middle soft, my legs rubbing together, the scale number reading 10, 15, 20, lbs more then I want, and my clothes from feeling tight.  Here’s where routine comes in to play. I get mad at myself for not being able to meet my goal of losing 5 lbs a month, but when someone offers me cookies, french fries, a cocktail, I don’t decline. I don’t track my calories daily, and I’m ever willing to skip a workout. So that routine, of eating right and working out, is it all in my head? No, not all of it. Part of the time, I’m working hard, and part of the time, I’m not working at all on those goals. The only logical place for these two to meet, is exactly in the middle at no change.

What does it take to tell yourself that you can’t give up? How do you mentally take the step to embrace all the will power you have and attack what will truly make you happy with the same passion you use to plan your next vacation? Blame the media, blame whoever about body image issues. The truth is, the only person that is giving me my body image issues is myself, the same for the only person that can fix these issues.  So what are the steps? I don’t really know.  Start with a cleanse, start juicing, drinking green smoothies, go vegetarian, there are a million messages being sent my way, but I have to be the one that takes them instead of deflecting them.  I’m only 25, I can’t expect to decline every happy hour invitation by saying no I have to go the gym. But I can commit to making better choices throughout the day if I know that is going to happen.

Here’s to breaking routine.

xx

-h