B.A.M.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, for reasons I’ll get into later. But, I think it’d be just grand to start a movement called Body Acceptance Movement. Mostly because I think it’d be sweet to have the acronym BAM. I mean, BAM! I totally love and accept my imperfect perfect body. Right?! I know there’s already a BIM (Body Image Movement) but, there’s room for more, in my humblest of opinions.

So, here’s my story. About nine months ago, I set about to drop some poundage and gain more muscle. It turns out, I did. I’ve lost 28 pounds to date and countless inches and I’m smaller and more muscular and fit than I think I’ve ever been. You think that’d make me happy right? Wrong. Turns out, I’m more insecure and unhappier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. In fact, my mind has turned into a complete nightmare of sadness and agony.

Nearly every day, I go to the gym and see all these other women with gorgeous legs, butts and arms and while they are lightly plodding along on the elliptical machine, I’m over in the weight section doing deadlifts, squats, sumo squats, rows, pull ups, dips, jump squats, pendulum lunges, planks, tricep kickbacks, you name it. I follow this up by doing wind sprints on the treadmill and running mile after mile. And still, I can’t change the shape of this body I live in. I will never have legs like the girl on the elliptical barely breaking a sweat. Ever. No matter how hard I work.

We're being inundated,
daily, with being sexier,
not losing our man and
having a bikini body.
Think about it.

I don’t know what happened (that’s a lie, I really do) but, I know that I’ve become a prisoner to my own mind and I drank the poison of the media and I no longer feel that I have any value. Everything that never bothered me in the past now brings me to devastating nights of tears and misery. I wonder when my significant other is going to just up and leave me for one of the gorgeous girls he was eye-balling when we were out the other day. Or why he even bothers to have ‘do stuff’ with me when he can just go online and have everything that I’m not in the click of a button.

I spend an inordinate amount of time researching better weight lifting strategies, but I now avoid many of the websites out there because I don’t want to be inundated with images of gorgeous models that I will never look like, no matter how much effort I put in. I loathe Men’s Health and Body Building because inevitably, they’ll have the nice easy links for men to view the top 100 hottest women in the world and so and so bares it all. I mean come on, where does it end.

This relentless focus on my inadequacies is literally ruining my life. Every day has become mostly just a struggle to move past the nightmare in my head and just get things done. I distract myself for hours and hours at a time to avoid the demons threatening to take me under again.

In short, this past year has been the absolute worst year of my life. I used to write often and sing loudly and proudly in the car on my way to and from work. And now, I’m just stuck inside this white-walled elevator of my mind, going over and over why I’m never going to be good enough, or pretty enough or strong enough and basically just suffering in isolation. I don’t want to talk to anyone because I’m ashamed and embarrassed that I drank the Kool-Aid for one of the first times in my life.

All this to say, I feel as though it isn’t for naught. I always knew I wanted to do something to help women and younger girls realize their value and potential and to ignore the media. It’s something I’ve been all about my whole life and maybe I had to really drink the poison and know how it feels not to think “Bam, I’m hot stuff” even if I didn’t look like a Hollywood star. So, that’s how I’m choosing to look at it.

The time is now. There are a lot of things happening on this front in the world and I want to be involved. I’m not sure what my plan is yet, but hopefully, if I can connect with and help others heal, I might also get over this ‘illness’ that’s been plaguing me with the determination of a terminal cancer. And maybe, just maybe ‘we’ as a whole will start seeing how we’re being taught what to like and what to be attracted to. Have you ever noticed the way even certain words change a person’s mind for a moment. For example, just the mention of the word bikini to a man can take him away.

How is it that we’ve allowed the media to place so much emphasis on women as body parts, not people? And how do we aid our teenagers in focusing on their talents and changing the world, instead of how sexy they can look for a man, or to get a man. Their busy taking selfies of themselves in racy outfits, and making duck faces instead of drawing, playing sports, creating and loving life. It’s time to wake up and look at how huge this has become.

Okay, I’m off my soap box…

Do you have thoughts or suggestions? Does anyone know how to start a movement and would be willing to help me? Do you think this is a hopeless cause that should just be accepted? Or do you think it’s worthwhile to try to make a difference in someone’s life and prevent others from wasting their time, like I did, feeling absolutely wretched and isolated for no reason whatsoever?

PS: Am I afraid that the people I know, who read this, are going to look at me differently? Yes. Do I feel intensely stupid and vulnerable for revealing what I managed to keep under wraps all this time? Yes. But, I know from reading others stories of a similar nature, how it helped me to feel less alone and less ashamed. And, I also feel that true strength lies in the ability to be truly out there and vulnerable. So, maybe it'll be worth it.