Throwback Thursday: Pre-Baby Body & Some Food for Thought!

This week's throwback is from 2 years ago (September 2011), taken in Sorrento on our honeymoon!  Ahh...the pre-baby body!  Sans stretch marks and a 24" waist with absolutely no effort.  Those were the days!  I hope to go back to this after baby #2 is born (I mean...not straight after but you know what I mean!).  I never really did get my pre-baby stomach back after Emilia but then I also knew I wanted to have another baby again close together so I think a part of me sort of said, oh what's the point and reached for another chocolate Hobnob ;)  Or three...  

But yes, I would very much like to start working out again after little No Name Saccone Joly arrives - in the meantime I intend to *try* and keep up my fitness level by walking a few times a week (so far this is failing miserably...but hopefully the second trimester energy boost will kick in soon!)  In all honesty though, this entire post feels horribly shallow, especially given the fact I'm conscious Emilia had the sniffles & runny nose all day and just now I had to give her Calpol as she had a temperature and was very snuffly tonight :(  There is a total shift in priorities once you have kids that nobody can fully prepare you for.  And while I am the first to admit that I still fully enjoy making an effort with my appearance & by no means do I have any intention to "let myself go" (don't panic, Jonathan!!) things that once held so much importance like a bangin' body or a tiny waist are nothing compared to the health or happiness of your baby/ies.

When I posted a picture of my less than perfect post-baby bikini body this year on holiday in Italy, I got all kinds of nasty comments calling me "fat", "flabby" and even telling me that I should be "ashamed to wear a bikini" or "I would kill myself if my stomach looked like that".  The sad fact of the matter is that all of these comments came from young girls or other women (some with children of their own).  When you think about it, it's actually no wonder most women suffer from body image issues if they are so intent on putting each other down/ripping other women apart.  But here's a piece of advice for all of my younger readers (or anyone who needs to hear it): these harsh words would most likely have crushed my self-confidence had they been spoken/written to my teenage self...in fact I probably would have been so devastated that I would have deleted all evidence of these pictures and burned them.  However now I can tell you it's a whole different story...I promise you that as you get a little bit older & wiser, you start to care less about what other people think and focus more on what makes YOU happy.  Starving myself or obsessing over every little imperfection on my body seems like the most pointless waste of time ever ESPECIALLY when I could be putting that energy into something far more productive and positive like spending quality time with my family/looking after Emilia/walking my dogs/writing a blog about positive body image...ha ha, wait - what?!  You get the picture ;)

What I'm trying to say is...there are more important things to life than having a six pack or a "thigh gap" (I actually didn't even know what that was until a few days ago...)  And although of course I would love to get my pre-baby body back someday, it's just not at the top of my list of priorities anymore and it's also not something I would risk damaging my health over.  So please bear with me as I continue to share imperfect pictures of my current self and remember to hate less & love more...whether that be yourself or someone else.  Because life is too short to spend under your own little cloud of negativity and critiquing other women's bodies.  What's important is that you are happy with who YOU are, it doesn't matter about anybody else.  

I hope this post has inspired you in some way or another!!  I did not expect to get that deep...but it's the middle of the night and I tend to get inspired at the most random times like this...oh well :)  Love and positive vibes to all of you!

xoxo

Anna