Pregnancy and Body Image

I posted this picture of myself on Facebook getting ready to go to church on Easter… and do you know what I saw? I didn’t see how nice I looked with my hair and make up done (a pretty rare occurrence). I didn’t see how cute my belly is getting now that I’m 33 weeks pregnant. Nope. My sight gravitated right to my arm… and I thought DANG my arm is FAT! It’s never looked that way before. My body has never looked this way before. Yes, I’m growing another human. But gaining weight and watching my body change hasn’t been easy for me… can you relate to this?

Honestly it made me kind of sad… that instead of seeing my body change and how it was changing to grow this adorable baby that we will meet in a few short weeks… I saw fat. Isn’t it crazy how much our body image affects how we feel? How seeing pictures of ourselves can make us feel bad? On my Facebook page I always try to promote a healthy body image and loving your body for the way it is–it doesn’t matter if you are at your perfect weight or not… I want you to feel beautiful. Now if only I could follow my own advice!

I have people message me a lot asking to join my Lose the Baby Weight group. I always ask them WHY they want to be a part of my challenge. I find that defining that why makes them think long and hard… why do they want to change? What do they want to change? I want them to commit–to themselves. A lot of times they say that they don’t feel good in their body anymore… that they don’t want to be in family pictures and they don’t like seeing themselves in pictures. Now, I most definitely feel like I can relate to them.

Sometimes it’s hard… when you have so much pressure from society to fit in and look a certain way. I think it’s really important for us to remember that we are all beautiful no matter what shape or size we are. We are all unique individuals and God made us in His image.

I listen to a lot of personal development and this one quote from Dani Johnson really stuck out to me… it’s about ensuring your children grow up with a healthy body image.

“How are you building up your children’s self image? The self image of your children comes from you. If your daughters hear you say that you are fat or make comments about your body, they are going to have an unhealthy self image. They are going ot have an image to live up to that they can’t live up to. You could be raising your daughters to reject their own self image because you are rejecting yours.”

How is your body image? Do you like what you see in the mirror? Have you ever gone through a time where you struggled with your body image?