LOL at looking back at old photos of yourself

Published: Thu, 05/18/17

Hi ,

You ever see an old photo of yourself and think, “I looked amazing then, why did I think I was fat??”

No joke, I have a photo from when I was the leanest of my life, at 10% body fat, and because of how a pair of bikini bottoms fell on my hips, I remember stressing that I legit had huge love handles.

That’s super embarrassing to recount, even now, because a) what even are love handles and why is this discussion even relevant, and b) I was the leanest of my life and STILL insecure about my body. It's a little bit of a WTF moment.

I know you’ve probably experienced the same—looking back at an old photo and going gee, I looked pretty good there, WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Loooolol.

But seriously, as tragic as this all is (meaning, the myopia of body insecurity), we also have to just laugh because when you do reach the point that you start to like yourself, you appreciate your body for what it can do, and you don’t need to look a certain way every second or else you suck, you see that objective measures (or even subjective!) don’t have anything to do with things like confidence, body esteem, quality of your relationships, your effectiveness in different areas of your life and your ability to create a life you love.

Sure, it mattered then, I’m not belittling the very real feelings (I obviously experienced them too, plenty), but honestly, life is too short to hate yourself as a fulltime job.

As you know, I’ve been doing Chrissy King’s #PowerConditioning program recently, mixed in with #FastPhysique and I came across one of Chrissy’s posts, similar to this, and I loved it so much I want to share it here. I think all of us can relate:
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I love this, don’t you? Such an incredible mindset.

If you have not seen Chrissy’s incredible weight loss transformation photos as a result of getting into powerlifting, you can see them here.

 But here’s something that I think we often get backwards, at least in my experience:

Loving your body as a mantra is hard. For example, telling yourself to look in the mirror for an hour and repeat, “I love myself,” might work. It’s certainly better than nothing, and I do love me some journaling and gratitude practice.

But what I believe is even more effective is practicing body love FIRST through action. Treating your body like you do love it already, through training.

And to me, weight training is the gateway.

I was just having this conversation with Chrissy 2 days ago (I’ll be sharing our full interview tomorrow): I don’t know what weird, crazy, iron magic happens, but once you start training with weights, everything changes. Your self-perception changes. Your self-efficacy (your perception of your ability to do bigger things) increases. You feel successful, not only in the gym, but uh, as a human being in other areas of your life.

It’s a strange transformation, but one where an increase in physical strength likewise increases your mental strength. You are somehow mentally tougher. You adopt the belief that you can handle stuff and most importantly, you find an appreciation for your physical body that you never knew:

Like, hello muscle, nice to see you👋🏼

Amiright??

Okay, so a couple things:

1) Has this ever happened to you? You look back at an old photo and wonder, what was I thinking, I looked amazing!! I’d love to hear about it. Reply and tell me the full story!

2) If you are wanting to get stronger while also maintaining your conditioning, grab #PowerConditioning by end of day tomorrow (Friday), when Chrissy is pulling it from the shelves. It’s for those who are curious about powerlifting and want to see the weight they’re lifting go up, but also want to add some metabolic conditioning and some fast-paced stuff, too to maintain and maybe even get a little leaner.


Let me know if you have any questions and I can’t wait to read your stories of (mental) transformation! Give ‘em to me.

Xo,
Jill
Get #PowerConditioning