Rose colored or coke bottle bottom glasses... your pick

With the Healthy Living Summit coming in the next few months, I have been finding more and more blogs that I hadn't know of beforehand. As a result, and obviously since blogrolls are as addictive as cute puppy videos on YouTube(they just suck you in and next think you know, it is a hour later and you had meant to go to bed a hour and a half ago.) I was thinking more recently about distorted self body image and how quick it can set in. I've read the stories of girls out there and how they beat this, are beating it, and are struggling with it every day.

The big deal that got me really thinking was when I read Hungry by Crystal Renn after reading about it in a newspaper. She looked familiar and I knew she was a serious model but I couldn't really place where I had seen here. I had hoped it was a honest book and not just an outlet for whining and bashing others. I wasn't disappointed. It was her struggles, her realization, and her acceptance of who she is on the outside. I know it can be taken as a cliche topic but one aspect rang true. She wasn't anti the naturally thin girls and she called them such. I don't remember the exact wording but it was born thin, naturally thin. It wasn't skinny girl who obviously didn't eat therefore all skinny girls don't eat.

True, I may have been thin due to genes but the athletic ability was seriously lacking in the jean clad butt of mine. My duck reflex has and has always been my strongest athletic ability. Well maybe then it was. Now I have found things like hiking are interesting to me.

Add stresses of school, dating woes, being extremely hard on oneself, and a steady diet of mac n' cheese, coke, cafeteria food and burgers in college and then fast food lunches twice a week after college. Oh and don't forget running on chain coffee and breakfast sandwiches. I got skinny fat. True I could still fit in jeans I had for years but health wise I knew I could do better. Dinners were always healthy. That was never a problem though I rarely ate breakfast which now I know is a no-no.

Now I am at a position where I am not in my early 20s anymore and know that to live a balanced life I need to make small changes that will stick with me. Breakfast is a must now even if it was the poptart and a half this morning which was awesome but not something I can stomach every day. (Too sweet!) I'm heavier than I was before but it's more so finding the best optimal weight for me. I honestly have no specific number. A range is fine where I feel good, don't get sick often, and don't have to buy new clothes every season. I do have the vanity aspect of fitting into some clothes that don't fit as nicely anymore. (Fitted jeans are one thing, painted on ones are another. This is me of course. If you want to wear your jeggings, more power to you. I survived in the Jnco/super wide leg jeans era so I'll go the wide leg trouser route.)

So now it's continue to eat well, try to get regular exercise and see how this goes.