Mom Friendly Fitness

Because a size 2 isn’t fat and neither is a size 12

With all the buzz around losing weight this time of year, it’s pretty easy to get dissapointed with the state of your body. Those holiday meals catch up quickly and you vow, VOW, to run/train/stretch/drink water. Right?

Or is that just me?

I realized in a fevered hurry, I’ve jumped the gun a bit. I do, in fact, have about twenty pounds to lose before returning to my pre-pregnancy weight. I should stop eating sugar because of the numbers my fasting blood sugar touts.

But the real goal here should be to reach a fitness level I can sustain for the next thirty years or so. And, most importantly, to teach my daughter that it’s OK to not be a size two.

I recently read this column on BlogHer, which completely touched me, and followed the links to here and here. I remembered my own body weight issues, my body image distortion, my eating problems. Somewhere in my mid-twenties I grew out of my hate for my body and became, generally, OK with it. Not happy, not all the time, but I started worrying about bigger things and stopped fretting quite so much.

Or maybe I just sort of gave up because chocolate was just so very yummy.

Either way, I ended up in a place, a little pudgy in the middle, a little unhappy about it but unwilling to freak out at the same time. I’m not sure I could tell my daughter how to reach this very “zen” where you can strive for a better fitness level without hating your own thighs but I believe in my heart she will learn from me more than the TV/Magazines/Peer pressure will teach her. That’s my hope, anyway, and it starts now. Today.

I want to vow to never let my daughter see me fret over my weight, to hear me utter the words, “I feel so fat” or to notice me cast my eyes away from the mirror when the body that produced my wonderful children stares up at me with a saggy mind of its own. I want to convey to her the importance of health and fitness, working out and eating right, drinking water, and being responsible with the body she has. I want her to be active and happy and to know she is ok, beautiful even, on the days she doesn’t feel like it. I want her to feel empowered by her body instead of held back. Somehow, we have to teach our little girls that a belly isn’t made to be flat and thighs can be powerful and strong.

There’s a happy medium between what Hollywood says and the 50% of obesity rate in children.

Maybe our New Years resolution should be to change how we think about fitness.

And then, to go do it.

*Don’t I wish I felt this free about my own self?

Read more of Leslie’s sarcastic blahblablah at Mrs. Flinger and find podcast reviews, interviews, crafts, events and topics for the Seattle Parent at Mamaspod.Com. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for “Mom Friendly Fitness,” email leslie@seattlemomblogs.com.