_whimsybird @whimsybird - Tumblr Blog

I never post here anymore and will probably delete later but I am just feeling so low rn like my body physically feels like shit, I look like shit, my heart just feels so tired and all I wanna do is sleep forever and eat ice cream and cuddle my hedgehog

#my hedgehog hates cuddles #vent

Also this little bean just came into my life and she's the grumpiest, sweetest little girl.

#Mabel #hedgehog #Mabel the hedgehog

I don't post like ever anymore but I'm on vacation with my family and my mom and I went to the gym together and she called me "amazing" because I can run 40min without stopping Just a reminder that while some people run marathons, others run 6k and that is still amazing

#running #fitness

artpropelled

Tommy Cavarela

did-you-know

Raised off-the-grid in the remote Oregon wilderness, artist Gypsie Raliegh takes inspiration from anxiety, death, and heartbreak and combines darkness with whimsy in her comics to explore loneliness as a way of life. Source

genderlesslights

I haven’t really spoken about why I took a step back from fitness, at least not in a huge post, but I have had a lot of recent realizations about that community via talks with Katie ( @swoleginger ) and I feel like this is something I need to post about. It’s entirely my opinion, not something anyone else has to agree with, but it’s something I do need to talk about.

I started getting into fitness and the fitness community out of a desire to shrink myself, as many people have. I had gained weight in a way that didn’t feel comfortable to me, and honestly, I don’t think this desire to get the “right” body ever left me. I started the usual way and went to lifting and loved it, but I was still hyper critical of my body. I went from weighing very little in high school to weighing more than I was comfortable with and hating my body and I wanted to fix it and make it “right” – whatever that was.

However, the control I wanted over my body and what I wanted my body to look like – this “right” body – was never something I quite achieved, at least to my eyes. I lived in a world of severe body dysmorphia, and that’s something I realized recently.

But a big reason why I think I went down this path? It’s because of the way that the community ultimately is. People preach about “healthy mind, healthy body” and how these people at the forefront of the fitness community are “normal people just like you!”. But they’re not. They really aren’t.

I wondered why this body I wanted so badly wasn’t one I was achieving – after all, the people I followed were normal just like me, so why couldn’t I achieve it, too?

_______________

It’s because they’re not normal people. Their entire lives are focused on fitness because it’s their job. Their entire lives focus on tracking macros, working out all the time, watching their bodies, and working on their bodies. That is their job – and that wasn’t my job. I am not a fitness model. I am not the head of a fitness company. I don’t work out for hours a day, and then eat in conjunction with that. I am a college student, a psychology major and art history minor, who’s involved in organizations and clubs on campus, who wants to be a lawyer, who spends most of their time studying and with friends. And that’s okay.

What ultimately isn’t okay and isn’t healthy is these fitness models acting like they’re just everyday normal people. Because when those everyday normal people try to achieve these bodies and these goals and they don’t, bad things happen.

To act like you’re just “a normal person who works out a lot!” isn’t fair to the regular population. To not explain that this is your work, and your life, isn’t fair. A disclaimer should come on these photos that say “this is my job and this is what I work for”. And I’m not saying that these people are inherently bad – but to act like they are just like everyone else is bad. Because most people don’t have hours to devote to their fitness because it’s a hobby, not a job. But when it is a job, that should be made clear.

Knowing your platform and knowing you’re audience is important. And acting normal is ultimately doing a disservice to this audience because you’re not being real with them. This isn’t to say change your life and not make fitness your job – if it is, it’s okay. Just be real and be honest with your clientele and your audience. That’s what is important. Market yourself as who you are. And maybe then, bad things will stop happening. Expectations will be realistic. And your audience? Your audience will appreciate it.