body image
“Do I Look Fat?”
It happened today. A day I’ve dreaded since my little girl was a baby. We were getting ready to go swimming. Crowding around the bathroom sink with her little brother, the three of us busy dodging elbows and weaving through legs while searching for an opening to rinse and spit. Amid the chaos she stopped, looked me straight in the eyes and barely audible through her sad, embarrassed tone said, “Mommy, I feel like this bathing suit makes me look fat.” I froze as my heart broke. Thoughts like molasses, I sensed them trying to call an emergency meeting while unable to break free from the muck. The only clear ones I could make out were “How did this happen? My baby. She is only 6. What do I say?” Believe me when I say while I’m certainly not batting a thousand in the “saying the wrong thing in...
A marathon-training Denver mom’s body-image breakthrough
While I was recently plugging along on an 18-mile training run, I played a lot of mind games with myself to help push me through. I’ve done this a lot since I started running six or seven years ago, and it’s one of my favorite things to talk about with other runners. In part, because I like to gather new ideas for future runs but also because sometimes it makes me laugh: -“If you make it to that tree, you can walk a bit”, “If you make it to that lamppost, you can walk a bit” etc…. -While doing loops, I threaten the road I’m headed towards: “Alright Broadway, I’m coming for you” or if there is a particularly difficult hill: “You think you’re better than me?”
