I hate what we do to our girls in this culture.
Just finished a client session with a gorgeous 18 yr old. She came to me last June with her mom b/c she wanted to lose some weight in a healthy way. She has a chronic medical condition that makes excess weight not so good for her (a congenital issue involving the circulation in her legs). I cautioned her about setting healthy body expectations and we discussed what a healthy weight might look like, etc etc. Since last June, she's lost 11 lbs, but more specifically she's lost all that weight in fat loss, dropping her body fat % from 35% body fat to 30% body fat, which is actually a huge health success and a difficult thing to do (body fat % over 32%, regardless of actual scale weight, puts a body at higher risk for developing metabolic conditions like diabetes. This has nothing to do with weight and everything to do with muscle to fat percentages). She's doing fantastic, her leg pain has significantly reduced, and she looks gorgeous. But she looked gorgeous to begin with, so the weight has had no real impact on that. And she's plateaued around her weight loss within the past month or so. Because she's *actually at a healthy weight and size for her body* and because she's *at the size that is to be expected given her diet and exercise habits*. *Which are perfectly healthy and normal*. And I had her in here crying because she's just not gonna be a size 2.
I am not judging or blaming her in the slightest. She is incredibly frustrated because she's been working her tail off to be really aggressive about eating healthy food, exercising regularly, doing all the right stuff. She's in college. She doesn't drink, she doesn't make stupid decisions. She's in way better shape (physically and otherwise) than most college students I've worked with. And she absolutely cannot see her own success, cannot see her own beauty, can't see how effective she's been. And it makes me want to cry, and it makes me want to punch every magazine editor and photographer and every producer of mainstream media in the face. Because someone sold this gorgeous girl a bill of goods, and she bought it, and it's keeping her from being able to see that she's healthy, gorgeous, perfect. I want to strangle everyone that's ever made her feel like being a size SEVEN is somehow ugly and wrong. And we talked about it and talked about it, and I don't know how much difference my words are going to make.
I'm having a hard day today.
I am not judging or blaming her in the slightest. She is incredibly frustrated because she's been working her tail off to be really aggressive about eating healthy food, exercising regularly, doing all the right stuff. She's in college. She doesn't drink, she doesn't make stupid decisions. She's in way better shape (physically and otherwise) than most college students I've worked with. And she absolutely cannot see her own success, cannot see her own beauty, can't see how effective she's been. And it makes me want to cry, and it makes me want to punch every magazine editor and photographer and every producer of mainstream media in the face. Because someone sold this gorgeous girl a bill of goods, and she bought it, and it's keeping her from being able to see that she's healthy, gorgeous, perfect. I want to strangle everyone that's ever made her feel like being a size SEVEN is somehow ugly and wrong. And we talked about it and talked about it, and I don't know how much difference my words are going to make.
I'm having a hard day today.