Low rise jeans and extra mama skin=overhang

Letting my food baby breathe;)

Flexing like my life depends on it, and a self tan!

I’d consider myself a fit person. I workout 5 days a week and count my macros daily and really take pride in being consistent with my health AND pushing myself daily at the gym. I’m also 36 years old, I’ve had two kids, and my body has changed since I had them. It’s not a BAD change, by any means, but anyone with kids knows your body kind of goes through hell and is just different. I will say this, I’m in better shape than I was BEFORE I had kids, because back then I could do next to nothing and still look pretty decent. It was just a little easier. I wasn’t as fit, or toned, but it worked.

I spend a lot of time on Instagram, building this community of like-minded friends in the fitness community, and I see SO MANY gorgeous and fit women. It seems effortless for them, from my perspective. Their bodies are INSANE and some have a zillion kids (exact number…), and they inspire me so hard. The same can be said of Pinterest, and looking at magazines when I was a teenager. I’d read YM and Seventeen and see these models who looked nothing like me, and I’d be so jealous. I’d feel like I was doing something wrong, because my body didn’t look like theirs, and never would. It was really depressing. The fact is, I still kind of do that when I look at Pinterest or Instagram. I’m now older and a bit more wise now (ha!), I can see that a 22-year-old in college with no kids will most likely seem more fit than I am, or that some people are just built different and show muscle better.

And then I think of my account. I post a lot of fitness pictures, because I like sharing my journey with others, and it keeps me motivated. I think about someone looking at me and thinking bad of themselves. I don’t want that! I want to be real and honest and make you feel better, not worse.

The thing about the girls in the magazines and social media is that they don’t even look like those pictures in person. None of us do. These pictures are highly edited and the poses are just right and it is a moment in time where they resemble that look. I mean, I do the same. If I’m going to stand there in my bathing suit and take a picture, I’ll take about 5o and find the BEST one, and then edit it. I manipulate shadows and light, I use the blur tool on my leg scars and make the one photo I post as amazing as I can. I’m flexing hard and showing my hard work, and we all know that isn’t real life. I’m not taking away from my hard work, everything I post is ME. I don’t add muscle or definition or do anything but edit the lighting. It’s just that in my daily life I’m not trying that hard. My stomach rolls over itself when I sit or bend over. I have stretch marks on my hips and back, cellulite on my butt and thighs, and scars and sunspots on my legs. I am not perfect. Yet my Instagram captures this moment in time, where everything is just the way I want it to be, and my abs are flexed until I’m gasping for breath.

My reality is probably just like yours. In certain lighting and situations I look one way, and in others I look complete different. I show only the best online, and save my reality for daily life (and my Facebook page, because I DO love being real with you all.)

So the next time you get down on yourselves with comparison, remember, that girl you admire doesn’t look like her picture 90% of the time. Comparison is the devil and gets to all of us no matter how hard we try not to. I’m insecure and doubtful a lot, and confident and secure other times.

I’m proud of myself for my hard work, and so should you. Forget the other women out there and focus on how you feel deep inside, because if we are content THERE, we can be content anywhere.