Good morning, everyone! Yesterday's barbeque ended up being a ton of fun, even if it was rather chilly. We started outside for a few hours, then moved the party indoors eventually. The festivities are continuing tonight, too!
This morning for breakfast, I went to buy a bagel at Zaro's, one of my favorite carb meccas. The line was long, so I found myself small-talking a bit with the middle-aged woman in front of me. All of a sudden she smiled, looked at my stomach and asked if I was pregnant. Um, excuse me? No. She immediately got flustered and covered herself with "Oh, I'm sorry, your belly just looks big for how thin you are..."
Wow. In her defense, I was wearing low-rise yoga pants with a pretty fitted t-shirt and I was standing strangely, so my tummy was sticking out a bit. I've posted before about how my stomach is my least favorite body part, and while I've learned to just live with it, that really stung. I'm positive she didn't mean it maliciously, but I think it would have gotten to any woman a bit.
I'm not posting about this to fish for compliments or to start bashing the lady, but rather to illustrate the point that no woman, no matter how thin or attractive or confident, loves the way she looks 100% of the time. You can train your thoughts to stay positive and learn to embrace your flaws, but that doesn't make you immune to insults. The trick is realizing that getting upset doesn't solve anything; I could cry into my celery sticks for weeks, and it wouldn't undo those words. The only thing that I can change is the power I let them have on me- I felt good about my body before the encounter, so why let a stranger change that? Yeah, it was upsetting, but as the lovely Meg so encouragingly tweeted me, "You're in control of whether you wallow in it or let it pass you by and enjoy the rest of the day." Amen.
When I got home, I dug into my bagel with gusto. After all, apparently I'm eating for two :)
I topped a chewy whole-wheat bagel with almond butter, and had a banana alongside of it. I was going to put the slices on top of the bagel, but I always pick them off anyway!
Hope you're having a wonderful start to your weekend!
How do you overcome negative body-talk? Have you ever had an experience where someone else brought you down? How did you deal with it?
