20/09/2026
A little body honesty from me today... 🩷
Recently, I've noticed myself feeling a bit more conscious of my body. I haven't been feeling my best in my clothes, and I've found myself looking in the mirror and picking apart bits of my body.
But when I look at this photo, I actually see something quite different. When I look at my tummy and my soft bits, I don't just see things I'd like to change anymore. I feel quite protective of them. I feel a genuine sense of love towards this body of mine 🥹
That's something I never thought I'd say years ago. There was a time in my life when having a flat stomach was the ultimate goal. Not because I wanted to be healthier, or because I wanted to feel stronger. Purely because I thought I needed to look a certain way to be beautiful.
And being a fitness instructor can add another layer to that pressure. There's this idea that if you teach fitness, you should LOOK like fitness, and when you spend your working life encouraging other people to exercise, it can be very easy to feel like your own body is being silently judged too.
💭 Shouldn't she have a flatter stomach?
💭 Shouldn't she look more toned?
💭 She's a fitness instructor - shouldn't she look like this?
Maybe nobody is actually thinking those things. But when you've spent years absorbing those messages, sometimes you say them to yourself.
And I know I'm not alone in that. Iknow so many women who look at their bodies and immediately see the things they'd like to change.
👉🏼 The tummy they'd like to flatten.
👉🏼 The thighs they'd like to make smaller.
👉🏼 The arms they'd like to tone.
👉🏼 The dress size they'd like to drop.
And I completely understand why. We're constantly surrounded by messages telling us that we should be smaller, slimmer, tighter, younger, leaner and somehow better. We're sold diets, supplements, injections, pills and 'miracle' fixes.
I don't blame women for feeling pressured. When you're constantly being told that your body could be better, it's hardly surprising that you start to wonder whether it's good enough as it is.
But maybe we need to turn down some of that outside noise and ask ourselves: How do I actually feel about my body?
👉🏼 If there were no adverts telling you what you should look like...
👉🏼 No before-and-after photos...
👉🏼 No diet culture telling you what size you should be...
👉🏼 No one selling you the promise of a smaller body...
Would you still want to change your body in the same way?
Maybe you would - and that's okay. But maybe you'd realise that some of the things you've been trying to change for years aren't actually things you dislike about yourself. Maybe they're things you've simply been taught to dislike.
I'm not saying caring about your health is a bad thing. Quite the opposite. I want to build healthy habits that support my physical AND mental wellbeing.
✨ I want to feel strong.
✨ I want to move because it makes me feel good.
✨ I want to eat food that nourishes me.
✨ I want to look after my bones, muscles, heart and mind.
✨ I want to build a relationship with my body that isn't based entirely on how it looks.
Because healthy looks different on everyone.
You don't need a flat stomach to be beautiful. You don't need to be a certain dress size to deserve confidence. And you don't need to love every inch of your body every single day.
For me, the goal isn't to convince myself that my body is perfect. It's to respect it, look after it, be patient with it and appreciate everything it allows me to do, and maybe that's what this photo represents for me. Not perfection, or pretending I never feel insecure. Just a woman learning to look at her body with a little more kindness, appreciation and love 🥰
If you recognise yourself in any of this, I really hope you know you're not the only one having these thoughts 🤗
Maybe we can start being a little kinder to ourselves. A little less focused on what needs fixing, and a little more appreciative of the bodies that carry us through our lives every single day.
So I want you to think for a moment: What do YOU actually want for your body?
Not what you're being told you should want. What would make YOU feel healthy, strong, comfortable, confident and well?
Because perhaps that's a much more worthwhile goal. 🤗🩷
