Crunching the numbers

Ok to be honest this post has been swirling around in my head for awhile now, I wasn't quite sure how to put it all into words but here we go.

Everyone always talks about how you'll never need all the math you learn in school but when you start looking around numbers are everywhere...even more so for girls and young women. Every time you walk into a store there are numbered sizes on the pants, walk into Starbucks and the calorie count is on every drink, open up any magazine and there are ads for how to lose 10 pounds or even more...numbers are everywhere. When we are younger numbers aren't such a scary thing, the more cookies the better! But as we get older we are conditioned to want our numbers to be lower, ingest less calories, weigh less or have a smaller pant size. Sometimes you realize that you've only eaten one meal during your day or worse nothing at all.

What do all of these numbers mean? All they are really meant to do is to give us a guideline of what fits, what a healthy weight might be or inform us of our daily calorie intake. Sometimes though they result in making us lose weight or even ourselves. Sometimes the numbers crunch down on our self esteem and make us feel less, right along with the number of meals we've had that day.

I personally have long struggled with the numbers game. If I didn't fit into the size 2s or 0s at a store I would feel down the rest of the day and start to cut out foods. If I got on the scale and saw my weight going up rather than down I would immediately reconsider all of my food choices from the past week. Honestly this is why I don't have a scale in our apartment, my obsessiveness of how much I weigh would literally put me on the scale every day, twice a day...I know, I did it for a whole summer. 

Do you know what none of those numbers ever got me though? They never got me happiness or healthy. Just because I weighed 105 didn't mean that I was happy in all of my relationships. Just because I could fit into the size 0 jeans at American Eagle didn't mean that I could run 5 miles. None of those numbers ever got me what we should all be striving for...a happy, healthy body.

So this year I am making a pact with myself (and now I guess all of you) to forgive myself. I will forgive myself for being so negative to my body when it didn't fit into the right numbers game. I will forgive myself if I gain a pound here or there. I will forgive my "shortcomings" when it comes to today's conventional beauty standards and instead I will strive for a healthy body image. I will work towards a body that allows me to get through the day with energy. I will strive for a body that will keep me going strong throughout the years. I will strive to be happy with myself. This doesn't mean I won't work on myself, heck it means I will work even more but with more of a purpose. A purpose of longevity rather than of fitting into the disappearing jeans. 

Our recent juicing and clean eating has made me open up my eyes to the fact that I can eat healthy foods that give me energy rather than starving myself and binging on junk food for sugar highs. Putting good clean food in to our bodies means that our bodies will work with us to reach our goals, rather than feeding our selves junk just to make it through the day.

At the start of every yoga practice my instructor asks us to set a focus for our daily practice and each time I quietly think to myself "I will forgive myself for not being "perfect" and I will start to see myself in a new light to lead to happiness."

I hope that we can all start to strive for health rather than the image of "perfection" that is portrayed by the media. I hope that we can all have fitness and health inspired goals rather than size inspired goals. How about striving to be able to run a 5k rather than striving to be a size 00, or striving to be more heart healthy in your eating habits rather than fad dieting to lose 10 pounds. Let's strive for happiness and health from our bodies rather than starving to look "perfect."