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Love Your Body Day
You know me by now and you know that a major part of my career is inspiring women to love their bodies more. I recently discovered that today is the NOW Foundation’s 2011 Love Your Body Day.
I’ll take any opportunity I can find to encourage you beautiful women to make an effort to accept your bodies today and everyday.
As a Pilates trainer, I spend my days helping women transform their bodies. I see a lot of people who are unhappy with their shape and size but I admire them for taking time to improve their health and quality of life through exercise. But us women, we tend to get a kick out of complaining to one another. But more than that, I believe we have been taught from a young age that we should complain. We somehow believe that it would be too conceited or vain to abstain from the body-bashing conversation. But I whole-heartedly disagree.
I know we’re all prone to criticizing our appearance. Trust me, I spend 90% of my day standing in front of a mirror wearing spandex. I struggle with confidence just as much as the next girl.
It’s one thing to feel a little frumpy from time to time, but it’s another thing to consistently pursue negative self-talk and join in the vicious cycle of community body-bashing.
So, I leave you with a challenge: in honor of 2011 Love Your Body Day, I challenge you to abstain from all negative comments about your body from now until the end of the week. I understand that the thoughts may still pop up in your mind, but stop them in their tracks. Resist the urge to audibly complain to those around you. Keep me posted on how it goes.
Note: if you’re my client or in one of my classes, this challenge remains in place indefinitely 🙂
*This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival *
Robin Long
Robin Long, founder and CEO of Lindywell, certified Pilates instructor, Nutrition Therapy Practitioner, and author of 'Well to the Core,' blends 15 years of expertise with a lifelong commitment to holistic health.
Learn more about Robin Long
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3 thoughts on “Love Your Body Day”
Shoot, I found this a day late! 😉 But I think I too could benefit from this practice. You hit the nail on the head when you say that we’re practically taught to degrade our own bodies. My husband gets very frustrated when I shield his nice compliments about my body, especially now being 6 months pregnant. I have to make a very concerted effort to say, “Thank you,” yet I don’t feel like I can say that to other women for fear of coming across as vain or self-involved. We are expected to be humble about our appearance but the media definitely encourages us to take it to the next level by posing such questions as: “What do you hate most about your body?” As tomorrow is my birthday, I think I will have my own “Love Your Body Day” just for myself. Thanks. 🙂
Hi Sherri!
Happy belated birthday!! I hope it was a wonderful day. I’m so glad you enjoyed this post and were inspired to challenge the urge to deflect compliments and speak negatively. I love that your husband encourages you to accept compliments, that’s so awesome 🙂 Thanks for your post!
It was October 19th? Man. I’ve got to read my RSS feeds more often! That is my beautiful little niece’s birthday, and I will be excited to tell her about it. I will have to put a reminder in my calendar, its a day I want to share with the women around me. It will be fun, that is a day to celebrate. 🙂