Hello helpful & lovely community,

I wanted to chat about body image and learning to focus on other things than physical appearance.

I have a very complicated relationship with my body. I remember being about 8 years old when I first time grabbed my stomach rolls and thought to myself how ugly they are. Eight years old. I didn't learn this behaviour from home but I think I've always been very observant of how others look. Both in person and on pages of magazines and TV. And now of course social media. I've never been grossly overweight but I've definitely never been slim either. I have a pear / apple shaped body and my entire life I've been obsessed how my stomach looks or how my thighs look when I sit, stand and move.

I found the joy of moving my body in ways that feel good to me with Fitnessblender when I was in my early twenties. Sadly, even with exercise being something I enjoyed, I did develop pretty toxic thinking patterns around food. I wouldn't go as far as saying I had / have an ED but I definitely wasn't thinking about food in a healthy way either. This has now shifted to a better place where I don't restrict anything but it brings me to my question to you all.

If you recognised yourself from my message above, how have you managed to balance out eating, working out and obsessing over how your body looks? Or have you? Is it a work in progress? Has anyone sought out professional help for this? Have you found it helpful?

I'm now in a better place than ever with consistency, moving for pleasure and eating for both fuel and enjoyment but I can't shift my thinking from the 8-year-old me who squished her stomach rolls. It's so exhausting and unnecessary. I have much better things to be thinking about!

Thank you if you read this far. It was a bit of a ramble 🥴