When all you’re feeling is “fat”, you get to run away from all of your other problems- and almost no one will notice. Not even yourself.

Feeling fat was my favorite avoidance tactic. It distracted me from everything else that needed attention in my life and yet, it was so tangible that it made perfect sense.

Turns out, cardio for hours on end and counting calories will only work as the band-aid for so long. Then one day you’re left having to look at all your shit you ignored for so long while on your quest to no longer “feel fat.”

When you dig through the emotions, what you’ll find is a heaping pile of things to sort through like: worthiness, acceptance, compassion, sadness, fear, shame, loneliness, inclusion, representation, values, closure, forgiveness… it goes on.

And, as much as I love sweat dripping off my face, it never gave me the answers I never knew I needed to the questions I didn’t even know I had.

Ignorance or cowardice? Either way, I don’t want to be either of those things. And you probably don’t either.

And here’s what I know now- on the days I feel my default creeping back in, the days where I feel uncomfortable with my own existence- I know where to look. Are my needs being met? What parts of me have I been ignoring? Where is the source of my stress?

If every time this happens to you, you keep looking at your workouts or food, you’re looking in all the wrong places- you’re avoiding going deeper.

If you put half as much effort in to your actual self- your mind, your thoughts, your beliefs, your stories- as you do into managing your body, you’d get somewhere. That’s a promise.