05/05/2025
*Trigger Warning - Body Image & Weight*
Healthy habits & healthy lifestyle = healthy mind... ✨
I've been debating sharing this sort of post for a long time, mainly because I've had lots of comments about my weight at classes and I always worry to share things about body image/weight, it would fuel the fire that you need to look a certain way to come to a Yoga class.
This is absolutely NOT the case, and not the point of this post!
I find the concept of body image and accepting compliments surrounding my appearance, especially my body, extremely difficult. But over the past few weeks, there have been compliments from you, my lovely students, about my figure. To quote one of you gorgeous humans, "Becci you look incredible" - I've never in my life had such a compliment! The temptation to immediately shut it down was so f-ing hard. This is an unhealthy habit that my mind has created over the years concerning body image that I'm trying so hard to change.
Ever since I can remember I've always felt like "the fat one". Secondary school in an all girls school was quite honestly hideous for body image. I look back at photos of me at prom where I look horribly close to being underweight and remember when I used to throw away all my lunches and felt like feeling hungry was a "reward". If you look back at everything my generation was exposed to in the media with sizes of celebrities, thinness that was constantly celebrated, it's no surprise my generation believed anything above a size 8 was "fat". To clarify, I was a size 8-10 at this age. But being half Greek, I always had a chunkier peach 🍑 and that hideous trend of skinny, low rise jeans made me feel even worse that I had a bum that just wouldn't fit in them. If only I could've told 14 year old me to wait 10 years for the big bum trend. No bum implants needed here!
Since June last year, I made the decision to change my lifestyle. No half hearted commitment. No New Year's Resolutions. No strict "diet" - I hate the word, actually no that's putting it politely. I DETEST the word "diet" and don't believe they work. It had to be LIFESTYLE changes for me. I was coming out of the hardest year of my life when Lola was born just 16 months after Edie being born, and Lola was so poorly with so many hospital appointments. We had a year of back to back stress in our family life - Edie really unwell with tonsillitis until they finally took the bastards out after months and months of me advocating for her health, backwards and forwards to the hospital with Lola with so many tests and always being told she would need treatment and tests throughout her life but to what extent they would be wed just have to wait and see as she got older (you can imagine what this sort of worry does to a person that worries about every single thing) to then finishing the year with the incredible news that Lola was absolutely healthy (something we were told from day one would never be the case) and edie's health dramatically improving since her tonsils were removed. My mental health was hit the hardest during this year, and so was my physical health.
But once we came out of the other side, life, dare I say it, had pockets of becoming easier. We had a solid routine, the girls were much less demanding now Lola was becoming more of a toddler than a baby as the girls started to play together. My body felt like it had had some much needed time to heal from back to back pregnancies, and back to back breastfeeding two babies. It finally felt like my own again after 3 years. I'd always carried on exercising throughout both pregnancies, and I'd be damned if anyone told me I couldn't get back to the gym so my bum was back on the spin bike 6 weeks after giving birth with both the girls.
So I made time. Time for me to exercise and do the things I loved - spinning at the gym, 4.30am Friday morning gym workouts before Ben left for work, joining a bootcamp class with my dad at the weekend, doing Joe Wicks' workouts a few times a week with the girls who now absolutely love them and ask to do them without me prompting because they know exercise "helps us feel big strong and healthy in our minds" 🤍
Since June last year, I've lost just over 35lbs (13.6kg) and I feel SO much better for it. The most amazing part of it is, it's been a healthy way to lose it. No starving myself. No fu***ng "diet". It's all LIFESTYLE changes. I've worked damn hard with all the workouts (I don't go to the gym and look pretty, put it that way!) but I LOVE food and coming from a Greek family, food is a huge part of us socially coming together and the same goes in our family of four. Cooking is something we do together. Something we celebrate with. But there's no punishments. No s**tty diets. We work out to FEEL good. We eat to FEEL well. We make food choices based on what makes us FEEL healthy to give us the energy for our day.
If you've been one of the lovely people to have complimented me recently on my physical appearance and it's seen hard for me to accept, I hope this post explains why on a deeper level. More importantly I hope by sharing this post, it shows that regardless of what I look like, I move my body not just for my body, but for my mental health first and foremost. Exercise saves my sanity and my soul - be it the gym, a home workout, running as I've just ran my first ever 5k this weekend (something I BEVER through possible!) or coming onto the mat and practicing Yoga with you all 🤍
Healthy habits and healthy lifestyles, lead to your healthier mind. Say goodbye to the diets and the quick fixes. Put your time, energy and commitment into long lasting changes and I promise you'll never look back. The first step is giving yourself TIME. 10 minutes a week. An hour a week. A day a week. Whatever it is, move your body in ways you ENJOY. Choose foods that energise you and make you feel good. Little changes = big rewards not just for your body, but for your mind ✨
