When I think of exercise now I think of being able to move my body and release excess energy. I think of a dopamine rush bigger than any bar of chocolate could ever give me. I think of health. I think of being the best version of myself, not just for me but so I can give that all to my daughter too.
So why is it that exercising has been so tied into the image of weight loss? Why can’t we exercise without the attachment of looking different?
You see, I did this for almost 15 years. That’s pretty much all my teenage and early adulthood in which I would slave away at the gym on the treadmill, desperately seeking the calorie counter to reach a certain number.. only to come home and restrict my food intake in fear of ‘undoing’ my hard work.
Calorie counting.. restriction, binging, it would all go hand in hand with exercise. It was my life. It consumed every inch of energy within my soul – contradicting right? Of course I never knew it then, the sad little girl inside of me wanted to be seen. To be loved. To be nurtured. She controlled her appearance because she couldn’t’ control the way others saw her.
She couldn’t control how she saw herself.
I grew up with magazines, media outlets and every diet you could imagine being advertised on TV. God there were so many, Atkins, Cambridge, slim-fast, you name it I’ve tried it. Everything I was trying to do was a quick fix for something that was deeply ingrained in me. I thought that if I was to lose that extra stone, maybe then I’d be happier. Maybe then I’d meet my dream man. Maybe then I would get the new brand deal?
Why did I think that if I lost weight that I would suddenly have a different life altogether? It’s because its constantly around us everywhere. We are swarmed with being told we are never enough.. and so then we start to believe it.
So with all of this it was inevitable that my lack of self-worth and body image would be at all time low. Being catapulted into the media propelled the self-hatred and sent me on a downwards spiral of completely losing any love I had left for myself. I hated Malin Andersson from Love Island. I hated who I had become.
Since I embarked on a huge fitness and wellness journey after having my daughter Xaya I’d say I’ve lost around 6 stone in total - but funnily enough the weight was just a by-product of me doing the deep internal work and wanting to nurture myself from within. Everyday I get hundreds of messages on how I’ve done it. How I’ve lost weight; but it frustrates me that it’s the only thing people focus on now, and not understanding that without doing the emotional healing on myself I would still be stuck in the same place, physically and mentally.
For me, I wanted to understand WHY I would emotionally eat. Was this excess weight I was carrying a visual representation of the burden I was carrying within me? The more I started to explore my childhood and behavioural patterns which surfaced from a lot of my mother and father wound growing up, I started to connect the dots as to why I would use food as comfort.. and why I lacked love for myself. It’s because I truly didn’t get it growing up.
As time went on I started to slowly reveal new layers of myself, slowly being reborn into the person I always wanted to be. I didn’t want to be a slave to food or exercise anymore and that’s exactly what happened.. I became me. The real me underneath all of the pain and suffering I acquired through my life of seeking validation from outside of myself.
To me, wellness has been a huge part of who I am. It’s now ingrained into me where I WANT to nourish every cell in my body with fresh food and great supplements, I WANT to move my body and feel the energy rushing through my veins. I have one body, and I WANT to look after it now. No quick fixes here, just a lot of new found love from within. When I wake up I’ll ask myself how I feel like moving my body for that day, is it yoga, running or some strength training? Or nothing at all? Food doesn’t cross my mind, I don’t plan it anymore, I listen to my hunger cues and opt for what I feel my body needs too. Supplements like Arella collagen have given me a new found love of looking after my cells and understanding that the internal function of my body has a huge impact on how my mind works too.
I dare you to love yourself a bit more today..
By Malin Andersson
