Beauty is subjective...

So, I have recently been getting quite fed up with the world and the pressure to look a certain way.

I have started to notice that there are specific tick boxes that you need to be able to 'tick' to be classed as 'beautiful'.  

I am guilty of scrolling through social media and comparing myself to lots of different woman and body shapes that are supposedly what you SHOULD look like. 

I am 25 now and still find myself feeling down and immediately going to the mirror and thinking 'you definitely 100% need to lose some weight'. 

I am just glad that I am not ten years younger and as easily influenced. There is so much pressure on young girls today. They are constantly been told what beautiful is and that to be beautiful they must look a certain way. 

Now I have definitely put weight on since I was a teenager and gone up a couple of dress sizes even over the last couple of years. Recently I have been having a battle with myself and thinking I really need to get back down to the size I was before. 

I look at pictures and I am even comparing myself to myself. I look back at when I was my smallest and question whether thats I should look now. After all social media says so right? 

I might of actually been really slim back then and felt like I could wear anything I wanted. I was good enough to be classed as 'beautiful' by social media. But I know deep down at the time I wasn't happy at all. I had the worst anxiety I had ever had. I wasn't eating properly and that is the reason I was the size I was. I didn't even notice what size I was because my mind wasn't focused on by body, it was trapped by constant panic attacks and feeling so sick I couldn't eat. 

So if I really think about it when I am comparing myself to the 'old' version of me. Do I really want to be how I looked then? I might have a bit more junk in my trunk, but now I love food and don't feel like I am forcing myself to eat. My anxiety is manageable and doesn't control my life right now. 

I believe that your mental health is so important and if you are perfectly happy in your own skin then don't feel like you have to change to be classed as beautiful by the rest of society. I have read somewhere recently that happiness isn't a size and we spend so much time believing that it is. I am trying to embrace how I look now because I know I am so much happier. I am also reading Fearne Cotton's book 'Happy' at the moment and she talks a lot about there not being a clean cut definition of beautiful. She says that beauty is subjective, so one persons view on what an ideal body shape is, is totally different to another persons.  

Please remember, you are beautiful, no matter what shape you are. Stop comparing yourself to Instagram. 

New year, new you?

Does anyone else feel a little bit anxious and overwhelmed by the start of a new year? It might sound completely ridiculous but the thought of having a whole year that you supposedly should have planned out makes me feel a bit blergh! 

We are surrounded by every social media account telling us that we must start a fad diet and a crazy new fitness regime. I feel like there is a significant amount of pressure especially recently to be a certain way. I just think why would we make January even more depressing that it already is by putting so much pressure on yourself to eat well and exercise only to be consumed by a massive feeling of guilt when you accidentally slip up cos you fancied that last Quality street left in the tin. 

This doesn't mean that I am totally against excercise and I admire all the people with amazing determination and I am probs a tiny bit jealous of the people who have a body like Jessica Ennis. 

But I just wanted to say to the other peeps who like me are beating themselves up because they haven't started the new year with a work out DVD and are still munching the Christmas sweets and chocolate that it is OK too, and you are definitely not the only one. There is no set time to do something and if tomorrow you fancy doing a Body coach YouTube video then do it tomorrow, there is no reason why we should be under so much pressure. 

I also don't massively believe in New Years resolutions, for the exact same reason that I feel a stupid amount of guilt when I haven't met them. Why give yourself crazy resolutions and then hate on yourself because you don't quite achieve them?

Why not start by setting yourself some smaller goals and build yourself up to the big things. You don't have to become a totally different person just because the numbers of the year have changed. 

I decided that this year the only resolution type thing I would set myself is to be nicer to myself and spend more time focusing on things that make me happy rather than what other people think. 

So I think it's completely OK that you don't have your shit together yet, you haven't started working out and don't have massive life changing goals that you want to achieve by the end of the year. Be a little bit more selfish and take your time.