Women and their bodies

This is a blog I posted on another site I am on dealing with diet, exercise and weight loss, just thought I would share it with you guys too.

Last week Oprah (yes I watch sometimes) did a show with Carson Kressley (formerly of Queer Eye) about his new show on Lifetime called "How to look good naked". If you have never seen this show the new season starts in July...WATCH IT! As a woman who spent years abusing herself and hating herself it about not having a perfect body this show inspired me to love myself more. Granted I still find that little monster me creeping out which I quickly try to beat up and tell to go away she is no longer welcome here. It is amazing how hard us women are on ourselves. Even little skinny girls (that I have envied myself) find a flaw (or even flaws) on their bodies. I was talking to a girl at work one day and was blown away that she thought she had a fat roll. (She is probably a size 2) I forget what my comment to her was but it was something along the lines of "Are you kidding me?" She looked at me and said "Just because I'm smaller doesn't mean I don't think there are things wrong with my body". It occurred to me at that moment exactly how women have become so self critical. I also had a conversation with a guy I work with whose wife is a personal trainer and just had a baby a few months ago and quickly bounced back to her awesome body, but still is unhappy with how she looks. He was saying that he is always amazed at how hard women are on themselves. He also said he thinks women are much more critical of one another than men are of women. We are massage therapist and see a majority of people's bodies and "flaws". He was saying how women make comments about themselves and how they point out their flaws. I can personally say most therapist are not judging your bodies in that way. Our intent is to heal and help, not judge, so please eliminate that fear when going for a massage. (sorry just had to say that very quickly) I have even had women come to me for a massage and once we were in the room tell me they felt a little more comfortable since I wasn't skinny because they were bigger. How sad is it that we are so concerned with how we are judged that we can't even enjoy a moment that is suppose to be relaxing. They wonderful thing on this show is Carson tries to find out why these women feel this way about themselves. He also puts them in front of a mirror in their underwear and has them tell him what they don't like about themselves. He then puts a picture of them in their underwear up and lets other people see what they think about the picture. He also puts a line of women in their underwear in order of size and ask the women to put themselves in the place they think they fit, they always put themselves in too big BTW. Anyway the show works on reprogramming how the women think about themselves as well as style tips. It is such an emotional transformation to watch these women. I just think we as a society have really got to learn to love one another and ourselves. If you are being abusive to someone about their weight (or really anything) and poking fun then you really need to take a look at yourself and find why you feel a need to treat people that way. If you are abusing yourself you need to figure out why and STOP. You will never lose weight and be happy. You may lose weight but then you will realize you are still not happy. Or you will continue to be defeated and the self abuse cycle will keep happening. In order to truly be happy you must learn to love yourself.