Skinny vs. fat

Let's talk about something else besides running for a change. Running wasn't the reason I got into fitness, and no matter how much I love to pound the pavement for an unnecessary amount of hours a week, my ultimate goal has always been health. 

So what is "health". 

I was flipping channels earlier this evening and on one of those celebrity gossip stations, they were reporting a story about these two women who started feuding over facebook about what "healthy" was. There was this mom Maria Kang who had posted this image on facebook 

And said "What's your excuse" MAN did people get mad at this lady. People started retaliating against her saying all of this awful stuff. Personally, I didn't know anything about this lady until she was on a talk show defending herself against all of the haters. She sounded nice enough. Frankly I'd love to have her body.

She was feuding with this lady. 

Who posted all of her photos all over facebook as well supporting a lingerie brand that is for "curvy" women.  She said that Maria was bullying her because she was saying basically that women who were "curvy" weren't sexy. That fat women weren't sexy. 

Maria stated that it wasn't a matter of "skinny" vs "fat". She stated that it was a matter of health. Just because a women is comfortable in her "curvy" skin, doesn't make her healthy according to the CDC.

I have seen a lot of this lately. People that say that they there needs to be a new definition to what a healthy weight is. That it is now possible to be obese and healthy; that with being overweight and obese you can now be just as healthy as those who are not. 

I have to be honest. Just because more and more people are overweight does not change the definition of overweight. It just doesn't. 

People like Maria aren't saying that it is wrong to be overweight because she is healthy and fit and she doesn't like people that are overweight. She is saying that people that are overweight are not healthy because she, like me, is in the fitness industry. She, like me and like many others, have taken many classes in college and through fitness certifications and seminars and personal study and on and on about the industry standards of health. Not just things like "being overweight is bad and fat people are ugly." By no means that is the way it works. Weight has nothing to do with a persons beauty. It's on the inside that counts, of course. 

But we did take class after class about what it means to be overweight, on the inside. 

We have researched slides about how large amounts of adipose tissue (abdominal fat) greatly increases cancer. How fat, in excess, can collect around a human beings heart, causing it to pump harder then normal and wearing it in age much quicker then normal. How people that have excess fat and stress around their hearts are prone to heart disease, a stroke, and many more forms of cancer. We have read story after story of people that have died at abnormally early ages, strictly because of obesity and their lifestyle choices. 

People like me also know what a beautiful thing it is to use your body as the amazing instrument that it is. 

I know what it is like to eat the way your body is meant to be fed, and how that makes you tick. What it feels like to feel strong, with muscle and tone and how it feels to be happily sore after a great workout, and the joy of seeing your body change in the mirror after weeks and months of really hard work. 

I know what it is like to reach the limits of my body and be rewarded. At times where I have physically been at my limits with myself, weather it be in running a marathon, sprinting up a hill, road marching or low crawling with 50 lbs of gear on my back; or in the moments of motherhood and the trials of life, where the demands of the situation that I have been presented have seemed exhausting and unrelenting, but because of the hard work that I have put in to taking care of myself physically, mentally, spiritually, I have been able to persevere and push through, even when I thought I never would have been able to.

I'll never be called skinny. I feel awkward in 2 piece bathing suit. I have had several babies, I enjoy the finer things in life like delicious cookies and really dark craft beer. I have an abnormally short torso that will forever make my belly look larger then it needs to be, my thighs will always touch, and my nose is large; and I have learned that these attributes are me and me alone and they do not make me any less sexy. 

But I will never be called fat. I find it extremely important to maintain a healthy weight within the industry standards. I notice that if I start to creep up a few lbs, I just don't feel right. Despite that I won't be thin, I find it extremely important to exercise my heart, my arms, my legs, and all of me on a regular basis.

Because despite what we want, there are guidelines to life. There are standards to the tests we take in school, the tests we take to pass our drivers license. There are standards to how many vegetables we need to eat per day and how many servings of protein and dairy and fat, and even if we don't feel like following the standards that were given to us, if we don't abide by them our bodies will react to the deficiencies and the surpluses. No matter what we want to believe, facts are facts for a reason. 

So don't go through life being naive and don't try to reinvent the wheel. But always -

Dream Big, Inspire Others, and Run Hard.