Sunday 27 November 2016

Who the real enemy is.

     I have heard so many sides to almost all of the stories. There are thousands of people, images, and industries telling you that you are FAT and imperfect. Every day. And not only do they tell you that you are fat, you are also ugly, obese, chunky, chubby and so on. But guess what!? We have a solution to all of your problems! If you only take this pill, run this marathon, workout, get of your ass, juice, eat clean, don't eat that-eat this,  buy my supplements, buy my cookbook, buy boobs, get a tan, loose the muffin top, tattoo your stretch marks skin colour so you cant see them. Yep, that's a real thing.
 
     There are two major things wrong with this. First, they make food the enemy. They tell you that everything you eat has too much sugar or fat. Too many calories, not enough kale! These industries who tell us we're fat have made it so confusing and overwhelming that we don't know what to eat anymore. We become a slave to scales and nutrition labels and calorie counting that we stop enjoying food. We spend half our life stressing over what we eat, and for what? Just eat real food. If It came from a lab, don't eat it. Simple as that.
 
     Second, and more importantly, they tell you and convince you that you, as you are right now, cannot be accepted for who you are. You must improve. They make you feel like YOU are the enemy! You must be not working hard enough. You must not be eating right. You must not be taking care of yourself...So not only do they tell you that you are not accepted because you are fifteen pounds overweight, they are also making the whole world believe that if you don't look fit, you aren't fit. I so desperately want to change this in the world. 
 
     I am forty pounds overweight and all my life I have been told that my body wasn't good enough. I have worked out tirelessly on twenty different fitness plans, I have tried countless diets, I have compared my body and its thousand imperfections to thousands of magazine images of health and "happiness". Never quite feeling good enough. Even at my most fit, I never felt like I had arrived. One thing I did learn along the way though, was that I AM fit. I work out three or four times a week, I have the thighs of a Russian mud wrestler, I can run 5km and not die, I can swim in the ocean, ride my bike and play with my kids. I eat well too. I take care of my body by eating real food. I don't waste time calorie counting, and no I don't care. I drink enough water and no I will not shove that disgusting smoothie down my throat every morning. I wont drink kombucha,and yes I still eat chocolate!  
 
     The problem with this crazy world we live in, is that so many women don't believe they are fit, healthy, beautiful, sexy, smart, or talented. The real enemy here is anyone or anything that makes you think you not are perfect just the way you are. So join me. Be the example. Love your body, love you for everything you are, right now. Become a Booty Camp Girls Body Image Ambassador and be proud of who you are! Stop letting someone else tell you what fit, sexy, healthy and beautiful look like and decide it for yourself!
 
 
 
Love, Dallas Glittertush
 

Monday 7 November 2016

Motherhood struggles

The world is a very fake place. All day every day we are bombarded by perfection. Perfect parenting, the perfect home, the perfect crafts, "I had the prefect day with me perfect child!" the perfect pile of shit that makes me feel totally inadequate as a human being.
 
Today I got together with the amazing Sarah Joseph. She is currently hosting a 6 week long facilitate conversations that revolve around motherhood and the struggles we face. It was nervous at first, sharing my chaos with women I didn't know. They will surly judge me by my tattoos, messy hair, and cavalier attitude towards cleanliness. I am the first to admit, I struggle as a parent. Todays talk was about self care. I am sure you are rolling your eyes already. We all know that we should be taking time for self care, but we don't, for a million different reasons. Its a mystery. I have to say that after our ninety minute talk, I walked away feeling so great. It was amazing to listen to other moms worry about the same things as me. It was so great to know that I wasn't the only one doesn't always want to play with their kids! It was just awesome. We all talked about sacrificing a clean house for motherhood and we all had similar stories. So today I actually gave myself permission to be ok with being messy. That's just me right now, and I have better things to do and stress about. I picked up the boys after school and told them they didn't have to put laundry away anymore. I bought them each two laundry baskets. One for dirty one for clean. I also bought myself two other laundry baskets. I'm taking out all of the dressers with tiny little drawers that I spend hours organizing and putting things away. From now on my closet will be filled with laundry baskets. "Dirty" and "Clean". I feel so liberated. There are no rules that say I have to be a perfectly organized mom to be a good mom. And now that I know that non of us think we are really winning. I can rest assured that I'm not the only messed up, cranky, overworked, underpaid mom.
 
If you have the means to attend Sarah's workshops, I highly recommend that you do. Or at the very least, lets start talking for real. Share your struggles, be brave, be real. Motherhood is hard. Lets not make it harder.