Mum’s Before And After Pictures Prove That Weight Loss Isn’t The Key To Happiness
[Photo: Instagram/Alison Kimmey]
When we read blog posts about fitness and happiness, the focus is usually on losing weight.
Even in posts about self love and body positivity, there’s still often the suggestion that we’d be better off a few pounds lighter. And while losing weight is a good and necessary move for many, the pressure to look or weigh a certain way can be exhausting and damaging.
This is why health coach Allison Kimmey recently decided to turn this idea on its head in a recent Instagram post.
Earlier this week she posted two side-by-side photos of herself, one of when she was a size 8/10, and one at size 16/18.
If the first image was of her at a heavier weight, and the second of her lighter, that would be a pretty bog-standard weight loss post.
But no - she’s a size 8/10 in the ‘before’ photo and 16/18 in the ‘after’, and explains that she’s “few sizes larger and a million times happier”.
A photo posted by 🌴 ALLISON 🌸 Girl Power Guru 🙌🏻 (@allisonkimmey) on Aug 28, 2016 at 7:44pm PDT
She describes how she battled with restrictive eating and body dysmorphia as a teenager, and had shrunk down to a size 2/4 by the time she graduated college.
“But I never saw that girl in the mirror,” she explains.
“There was always something wrong with her, no matter how hard I worked.”
She then says how she continued to struggle to love her body, subscribed to “diet culture” and “was always worried about the way I looked and how others viewed me”.
She then had a revelation:
A photo posted by 🌴 ALLISON 🌸 Girl Power Guru 🙌🏻 (@allisonkimmey) on Aug 27, 2016 at 5:54pm PDT
“And then something happened. I realized I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t have an identity because all this time I had just been worrying about fixing my body… I was wasting it telling myself and everyone else that we would all feel better if we were 10 lbs lighter.”
“It’s not true. What I know to be true is that we’ll all feel better if we start to get in tune with our true purpose here on earth and stop giving a f**k about what we are SUPPOSED to look like.
“So that brings me to the photo on the right, a few sizes larger and a million times happier. The last three years were quite the journey. I cried a lot. Relationships were put on hold. I questioned myself every day.
“But I didn’t stop uncovering the beautiful soul that I now know and love so much.
“It’s not about your size or your weight. It’s not about what you did or didn’t eat. It’s about how you feel about yourself, your journey on this earth and how you give back to others. I LOVE MY BODY.”
Hear hear, Kimmey.
What do you think about Kimmey’s Instagram post? Tweet us at @YahooStyleUK.
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