Our bodies get judged by the numbers on our apps..

Whether it is the measurement of your waist, the digits on the scale or the followers on your social media account, we get judged by numbers all the time. There is an app for every possible number we need to know about our bodies! Some of them are important (like blood pressure or heart rate) but others are so useless they waste our time and destroy our self worth, brainwashing us into believing we aren’t good enough if the numbers don’t look good!

There is an app to tell us how many calories we have eaten (or should not have eaten), an app to tell us how many steps we have taken (and still need to take), an app to tell us how many kilos we have lost (and still need to lose) and an app to show us how much time we spent in the gym (not always constructively though). We have become a culture obsessed with numbers and it has become the definition of our worth

I have experienced this first hand in my industry and it was one of the most disheartening experiences. I have ALWAYS know that my industry of “health" and fitness is about the physical body and transforming it into something that we look and feel good about (.....and I put "health" in inverted commas is because it does not stand true 70% of the time, there is very little actual health that goes on in this industry)...

From the moment we open our eyes and switch on our phones, endless messages of “numbers” get thrown our way telling us we are not good enough, not thin enough, not popular enough and just all round, “not enough”...or in many cases too much!

Women struggle with this the most I think because so much of these defining numbers get directed straight at our bodies! When was the last time you stepped on a scale? And how did it make you feel? How crazy is this, I refused to touch a scale for nearly 2 years just to break free from a pointless habit that somehow controlled how I felt about myself. So when I did jump on the scale not so long back just to for the sake of seeing that number......my heart STILL skipped a beat of disappointment when it was higher than I expected. Even after all that time, I was still allowing a number to define who I was and how I felt about myself. The daft thing was, before hopping onto the scale I was actually feeling pretty damn awesome about my body. So I asked myself the question, WHY DID I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE INFLUENCED BY A NUMBER on a little device that was INITIALLY invented to measure the weight of produce for bartering and selling?!?!!?!?

Us humans like to measure things, it helps give us clarity, direction and guidance which can be really beneficial for most parts BUT when it starts to define your happiness and actual perception of your worth and value, then there is something terribly wrong.

I realized that the reason for the brief moment of disappointment was because my brain has literally been brain washed by a destructive habitual pattern that was initially started 2 decades back when I was at a vulnerable age and felt the need to prove myself worthy to others through the number on a scale (I had 2 eating disorders and one of them had me jumping on a scale 3x a day!!!!!!!!! Full story is in my bio ;).

Even when I was at the height of my competing career, my success was defined by numbers. How many top placings I had, how many social media followers I had, how much weight I had lost since I first started competing......all this overshadowed any positive message I was trying to share about my journey. Even though every top placing or kilo lost I was proud of, I felt that there should be more substance and depth to the journey I was sharing and the message I was giving.

The hard truth is numbers drive creditability, business and ultimately profit margins. That is how it works but that doesn’t make it ok to have one’s life, success or body be judged purely by what a number says.

In the health and fitness industry this is especially true. In fact it's their right to make the best decisions they can to ensure their company obtains the best profit margins for success. I still do it! It’s just how it works. HOWEVER this often kills the moral responsibility of professionals in the health and fitness industry, which is to a) be honest about what they do and b) give a positive message to society that shows them that our self worth, value and physical bodies should NOT purely be judged by the numbers we carry on our apps.

The point of my message is that if you are reading this, I hope you can rise above this number obsessed culture and see that your beauty, your body, your value and your life is so much more that what a scale, tape measure or social media rating says. Yes, these things can guide you and help you achieve your goals but they SHOULD NOT be the deciding factor of what an incredible person you are.

Just because the scale is telling you that you are 2 kilos up DOES NOT mean your body is not healthy or fucking gorgeous! And just because your pictures on instagram don’t get a million hits (as awesome as that would be) does not make you any less worthy, valuable or beautiful that the person who did get it.

Just remember you are more than a number. You are a brilliant human being, with an amazing body and who has the power to change the world .....

#selflove #bodylove #bodyconfidence #bodyfreedom