Posts

Let’s Change the Body Conversation

/0 Comments/in /by

Want to get really in tune with the gloriousness that is your body?  Have it fall apart completely. Wake up one day and your legs work. Wake up another and they don’t. Same with your brain. Especially your brain. Have abilities. Lose abilities. Have abilities. Lose abilities. Have abilities. (Wanted to end that on an upswing!) Those able-bodied days become the biggest gifts from the universe. On a good day you could throw me in the most ridiculous, embarrassing outfit with dirty hair, no make-up and I would be raring to go anywhere in the world. Meet a celebrity. Sure. Run into an ex-boyfriend? Bring it on. Run…just run? Yes please! I could  care less about having the perfect appearance or the “perfect” body.  A perfect body to me is a healthy, happy body.

I do not exaggerate when I say that I now look at my legs with complete awe and wonder. They are beautiful and serve so many functions. One foot in front of the other without stumbling or tripping or swaying? You rock legs. You rock. I place my hands regularly on my belly and send it love – it is the core of my immune system running the entire show – it needs the love! You don’t ache every day anymore? You gorgeous, gorgeous untoned belly. Hips? They are gaining power. Their size? Don’t care. Are they helping me move? Excellent. The more function I get back in my arms, the more I celebrate. They have lost lots of muscle tone and I embrace the flabbiness of them. Flabby is fine. Flabby is beautiful. They are a work in progress. They move. They lift. They carry. They are amazing.

In this body journey, I have been constantly bombarded by media messages which pick apart women’s parts, a world in which no size or shape ever seems to be right and one’s body always seems to be elusively chasing a time when it will achieve perfection. Summer body. Bikini body. Before and after body. How about healthy body?  How about 365 days of the year awesome body? I want to bellow for the world to hear: None of this negative body talk matters!  And you know what? It really, really doesn’t.

LiisOnLife_BodyBeautiful

So let’s continue to change the body conversation. Let’s love ourselves today – not tomorrow or next week or next year. If you have made health and fitness changes, if you’ve lost weight, let’s not disrespect the beautiful body that carried you to today, that is a vital and wonderful part of your life journey. If you’ve gained weight, honour and truly love your present self and future self and not look constantly to your “before” self. Same amazing body your entire life – just a different form. Different forms of totally amazeballs you. Most importantly, let’s change the body conversation for the next generation. Let’s enable little girls to grow up knowing their bodies rock, that their body parts and quirks and differences are beautiful, that diversity is amazing…let them emulate our Body Rock philosophy knowing it is the norm and not the exception. Let’s have them grow up thinking having a “summer body” or “bikini body” are the most ridiculous phrases they’ve ever heard.

Please share this graphic and help change the conversation. #rockyourbody

Celebrate Your Accomplishments Today

/0 Comments/in /by

I used to do boot camp. I used to do full-out sprints on the treadmill. I used to do 3-5 sessions at the gym each week for the sheer thrill of feeling great. Of sweating. Of knowing I just shaved 5 seconds off my really bad one mile time. I was aiming for my first 5km run and I was excited. Didn’t care how much I weighed, what a scale said, what my dress tag said. How did I feel? Great.

I flew off the treadmill a few minutes into my routine jog in spring 2011. Right into the wall. I didn’t know then that would be the last time my body would be able to go to the gym. Found out I had Hashimoto’s, then endometriosis then last year gluten ataxia. My heart wanted to run but my body kept saying not yet, not yet.

If you would have told me back then that an exercise ball would take me down in physiotherapy years later, I would have said you are crazy. Not me the girl who fried the gym’s only treadmill by doing sprints. The girl who could do lunges and crunches for days. The girl who went to track school because it was fun to run up all the stairs in a stadium. Not me.

LiisOnLife

It has taken me many months to be able to sit on a fitness ball. Just sit on it. Then bounce. Then bounce and try to catch a ball. And I bawled my eyes out today while trying to do so. System overload. And I am so ok with that. Proud to cry because it means I am pushing through to another level.

I have reinvented my gym. Set new expectations. It may not be a stadium of stairs, may not be an hour jog, may not be a killer boot camp class. But every physio session, even if it is simply mastering sitting on a fitness ball, is a giant leap (or bounce) forward.

Celebrate your accomplishments today. Don’t beat yourself up about what you were able to do yesterday. Today you started. Today you made a difference in your current situation. Today you did amazing things. Today you created change no matter how small. And tomorrow you can look back and smile. You’ve got this…today. #rockyourbody