I’m someone who identifies as body positive, openly rejects diet culture and regularly gasses up my friends to the nth degree about positive self-talk. I almost exclusively share anti-diet culture memes and promote self-love on my Instagram—just last week I shared a photo of my naked belly, something I never thought I’d do. And yet, some part of me *still* believes I can’t be beautiful until my waist is smaller and my legs are more toned.
I first became interested in body positivity almost a decade ago, when I discovered Nadia Aboulhosn, a plus-size fashion blogger who got her big break when someone from American Apparel saw a photo of her wearing a pair of the brand’s pants on her blog. It resulted in a photoshoot with the brand. Five years—and 600,000 Instagram followers—later, she has her own fashion line and is one of thousands of other models with bodies like hers.
Somewhere along the line, I forgot how movement made me feel—and that it’s entirely possible to exercise without the goal of losing weight. I never would’ve called myself one at the time, but I was an athlete as a kid. I played soccer for eight years, competitively danced for three and horseback rode for a decade.
Doak starting training others when she was 18, but even as an expert in her field and someone who strongly believed in the principles of body positivity—in other words, putting inner health and happiness over outer appearance—she was still waging war on her own body through restrictive eating and excessive exercise. “I was constantly fighting it to portray what a fitness trainer is supposed to look like, and that was a really unhealthy and twisted way of thinking,” Doak says.
That’s exactly how it happened for Cleo Ellis. After moving to Toronto from Edmonton, and finding it far more walkable, she noticed how out of shape she was—and decided to make herself stronger. As a result, she unintentionally lost 40 pounds. “I didn’t do it because I hated myself or my bigger body. It was actually a consequence of me trying to make my body stronger and giving it all that I could,” explains Ellis, who believes body positivity means accepting bodies of all sizes.
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