YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE FIXED! YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE BETTER! I want to plaster this on every locker room and on all of your mirrors and write into your diaries a hundred times, because I am so tired of girls tearing themselves down, killing themselves in the gym and wastig so many days hating themselves. No gym programme or diet will ever really help you like yourself, because you are only chasing an ideal, hoping when you finally get to that point you will deserve to be liked. Realistically if you cannot see your self worth now, you won´t see it 10 kilos down the road. You will not like yourself more or less just because you loose some weight or have more abs. You need to start loving yourself just as you are as hard as that sounds and then maybe from this point of self love you can find a way to find balance with food and excercise.

This is still something I struggle with, but following no bullshit fitness pages such as the @fashionfitnessfoodie has helped somewhat. At the end of the day there is no magic formula for weight loss. If you want to drop some pounds you need to be in a caloric deficit. For years I tried to "eat clean" whatever that means, but truth is a small chocolate bar has about the same calorie as an apple so I might as well have the chocolate sometimes if I feel like it. Yes sure your diet should not be made up completely of food lacking basically all nutrients, because that will make it hard for you to function, but you are not a horrible person for having some chocolate either. Food is neither good nor bad. Some food is more nutrient dense and others may be less nutrient dense but more fun. What is crucial is to not completely banish certain types of foods or label others as saving your life. Acai is v tasty, but it is not giving you sixpack abs just like goji berries will probably not fix your entire life.  What we all need to wrap our heads around is that when we go over a certain amount of calories (no matter which type of calorie) we will gain weight, if we are in a caloric deficit we will loose weight. Your body does not store calories you consume at a nigh time differently than the ones we eat in the morning and it also does not care whether you burn some calories by walking of lifting weights. 



What is thus crucial is to find something that works for you and your body, find an excercise style you like and eat food that both nourishes you and makes you happy. And most importantly stop supporting an industry that promotes hating yourself and disciplining yourself into a version of you that is worth loving. Your body is literally just the meat shell for your mind, your personality, your amazing energy. I have never chosen a friend because of how they look, I would never stop loving my boyfriend or friends because their bodies change, because quite frankly that is the least important part about them. We are all so in our heads thinking about ourselves and how terrible we are, which is so heartbreaking to me. I have NEVER really judged anyone as harsh as myself and the way we speak to ourselves in our heads is often so beyond cruel. Realistically every fucking person is so busy thinking about themselves, that they rarely notice you anyways. So why not slowly unlearn these patterns of thinking and see how ridiculous an industry is that sells you being skinny one year and being strong another one or that makes you spend a million dollars on fucking dried berries that taste like dirt or eat puddings made from stuff that resembles baby frogs? (I really fucking hat chia pudding and gojiberries, sorry).

Why not try to eat food you like and that is good for you most of the time and eat food, which may be a little less beneficial for your body but really beneficial for your mental wellbeing at other times? Or just let go of all of that shit and eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. Why not use excercise so you can climb that mountain, run to catch your next flight, dance all night, so you can get some endorphins instead of as a punishment for too much food? Because at the end of the day this is your fucking life. How sad to focus that around a god damn gym and salads to please other people who don´t give two fucks anyway? Why not just live your own beautiful life and be happy today instead of when you finally finally reach that perfect weight, just to see how our standard of beauty changes and you have to start all over again?

I am by no means perfect, it is sometimes still very difficult for me to find balance with food and exercise, I still judge myself harshly. But I am trying to unlearn these patterns everyday. Loving yourself is a continuous journey, which you are never really done with much like the readings when you study humanities. But here are some of the things that help me personally to feel good:




I used to heavily restrict certain foods and tell myself I can never have them, only to find myself five foot deep in a bag of chips and ice cream three days later. I personally really love chocolate and have a bar of it every day with my afternoon coffee. It is tasty, I feel satisfied and I do not feel the need to eat the entire block because I know I´ll have some more chocolate tomorrow.


This is obviously not the newest trick in the book, but only recently did I realise how much more satisfied I am after a meal and how much more I can eat, when I add loads of veggies. I am a hungry person, I really really like large portions and being able to eat loads and still feel good is such a win for me.


Please do not think I am a terrible person, but I personally do not love pasta. Pasta is alright for me, but it does not make me the happiest person on the planet. I also really dislike whole wheat pasta, so what I like to do is mix normal pasta with zoodles. This makes meals a little less calorie dense without me feeling like I am missing out. I also used to think lower fat yogurts were the devil, because I had to eat the cleanest possible diet, but realistically with a lot of yogurts I really can´t taste the difference so I am happy to have the lower fat version and use the calories I saved here for things I really like such as chips. With cheese it is a completely different story and I will die for full fat Gouda if I have to. I also don´t really mind not using heaps of oil when cooking at home, however I think it is fucked up to make homemade baked chips without it (looking at you High Carb Hannah). So do not follow some artificial rules for what is "good" food and find what works for you.