Shallow Hal

If Tony Robbins could do for all Americans what he did for Hal in Shallow Hal….

What would our social media feeds then look like; and more importantly, how would we look to others?

Know the movie? Tony Robbins put a hypnosis or spell on Hal that allows him to see people based on their inner beauty. Some beautiful people remained beautiful, some beautiful woman became ugly, and some ugly beautiful.

Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

AND let’s be totally fucking honest! The beholder aka each of us individually can be easily influenced on what we see as beautiful and what we define as beauty.

Don’t believe me! Just take a look back at Shallow Hal. The movie itself defined what beauty is and what beauty is not… For that year anyways. Gwenith Paltrow’s beautiful side was super thin as were other actresses when depicted as beautiful and Paltrow’s ugly version was obese. While other “ugly” cast members had varying “not so perfect” features that made them “less than beautiful”.

Sure something heats up a little inside of us or maybe a lot when our natural filter finds another human being beautiful… our natural filter of what’s hot and what’s not has been and still is heavily driven by media and entertainment.

Thin eyebrows, thick eyebrows.

Big Big Booties, modest muscular booties.

Thin bodies, fit bodies.

This list goes on and on.

Actually, I think most may agree, influence on what image defines beauty has likely increased with the presence of social media platforms.

There is a reason why plastic surgery and cosmetic medicine is a booming industry! Most lucrative!! I totally support and applaud plastic surgery and cosmetic medicine… when we do it for ourselves and not as an attempt to please someone else. I will 100% take advantage until the day I die to tweak that which weight lifting and nutrition cannot stop from happening- part of my growing old un- gracefully. Having my exterior match how I feel on the inside and the energy that I have is important to me. That’s just me!

And my true opinion is we cannot blame media, entertainment, and social media… we have to blame ourselves because those platforms would not have power to influence without us giving it to them by reading, liking, following, and copying what is presented.

When we stop taking personal responsibility for our actions we become powerless!

My opinion… for what is worth or maybe not worth… is quite simple. We read, like, follow, and copy because we have goals for ourselves! I believe that we are each born with instinct to look, feel, and be our best! We are born to care about ourselves!!

We just allow that instinct to get side tracked or silenced at times by all kinds of life events… both emotional and physical. And sometimes it is just that we created bad habits that youth no longer hides.

What if our low self esteem had nothing to do with others… and everything to do with the disconnect happening within? When our outsides don’t match our insides there is a disconnect and that disconnect creates shakiness in our confidence and self love because we are not who we are suppose to be.

Close your eyes for a sec… you own a beautiful new Ferrari. it’s perfect! You proudly drive it around and ask valet to park it upfront because you are proud to show it off… nothing wrong with that! You then take that special car for granted by never cleaning it, filling the inside with trash, and you skip regular maintenance. Are you equally as proud to show it off? I don’t think so!

Why would our health and fitness impact us any differently?

This abuse can be self inflicted or a result of abusive relationships… and we have to stop the insanity and take back our health and fitness! Get the help physically, emotionally, and mentally needed to do just that.

Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes; in all different hair colors; and in all different skin tones. We assess hot or not or maybe somewhere in between based on our formed image of beauty and the image than gets adjusted based on the personality film the person has.

You know what I mean. We might not think someone is so hot at first sight and then we get to know them our assessment of their beauty raises… and the opposite is true. We think people are hot at first sight and their personally lens makes them ugly to us.

Not talking about being under the influence…We are leaving the film alcohol and drugs place out of this post.

I define beauty as someone who practices self care and self love; shows up in the world as their authentic self versus restraining their thoughts and beliefs afraid of peer judgement and not being liked by everyone; cares for others; empathizes and sympathizes for others; and builds others up. Self care and self love includes maintaining a healthy body weight and fueling with nutrition that benefits our machines versus nutrition that slowly clogs and shuts our machine down.

So as much as I love and support body positivity…

Each of us loving ourselves. Each of us caring for ourselves. Each of us accepting our differences. Each of us accepting the things we can and cannot change.

Fat is not healthy. Fat and healthy don’t truly exist! That fact cannot be argued as recent Harvard Study shows https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/can-you-be-overweight-and-still-be-fit.

So why should anyone be proud of harming their health?

Media influence can swing in the other direction and convince us that we should just accept our bodies as we are, as God made us, and enjoy life.

Truth- for most our bodies are what they are as a direct result of our fitness and nutrition habits.

Truth- for most we are born healthy and we lifestyle our way to not seeing how God made us.

Truth- bad health limits full enjoyment of life and all the things in it.

I will never support any platform that encourages people to remain in a unhealthy physical state. And I actually feel like it is a huge slap in the face with people that have true medical issues that impact their ability to maintain weight gain regardless of what or how much they eat or exercise.

What if body positivity looked like…

We own our current physical state, forgive ourselves if needed for any and all previous abuse, and affirm we are truly valuable asset in this world! And because we are such a valuable valuable asset we are going to make change to reverse the abuse we or someone else inflicted.

And start creating change to reconnect and align our individual health and fitness.