The Past

Let me take you back to around 2010. "Just The Way You Are," by Bruno Mars was on the radio, and a thirteen-year-old was in a dressing room trying on pants. It does not matter which store the narrative is the same. Just a chunky teen attempting to get jeans over a new, hormone-filled body. Sucking in her gut until it hurts, She prays not to hear the seams under stress.

Once the awkward how-is-this-a-large pant is on, she steps out of the beige dressing room to face the mirror. Under fluorescent lights, she sees her reflection and holds back tears.  If this sounds at all familiar, I sympathize with you. This was how I spent the majority of my shopping days as a youth. This is a shame since fashion is something I enjoy. For years it was a nightmare. I believed I could only shop at certain stores. And like most teen girls, I spent the majority of my days hiding behind baggy clothes forming a fear of scales and the mile run.

Paired with unnecessary commentary from society and media, I was gifted a complex that I can honestly say I am still figuring out. The next decade I found myself falling in and out of the cycle of self-acceptance. Comparing and coping with the uncomfortableness of my body, my new normal was hiding and over obsessing the negative.

I felt like I was the biggest in any room and had to use my humor and wits to get by. I spent the time pinching and pulling fat fantasizing what it could be like to be a hot actress. Beauty became a scale and I evaluated myself as cute or decent, rarely beautiful, and never hot. Today, I am writing to you first as a client of Beometry. Then I am writing to you as a teammate. And lastly, as a content producer. But most importantly I am writing to you as a Beautiful woman who has done a lot of time asking herself what is that language of self-love.

Yet, inside I knew I wanted more. I wanted to be skinny because: “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." I found myself falling short of my fitness goals mentally, physically, and emotionally. I sought comfort in my youth through food. When I got older, I set rules and regulations on myself that I picked up from magazines, websites, and family.

As the years went on, I added rules that I thought could magically transform me. Some of these rules are valid or come from an informed place, yet most are from outside sources. I broke these rules when stressed or not in a mindful self-caring state. I would eat pizza at 10 pm because I had to stay up and write a paper, feel sick the next day, not eat for 12 hours and repeat.

I then would mentally punish myself because "I should have known better" and then fall again into the endless cycle. It was until I told my dad that eating breakfast makes me feel nauseous, did I realize I needed to take action.

Enter Beometry

My father, being the good dad he is, found Isaac, and set up a phone call. I talked to Isaac about being a chubby kid, being a stressed college student, and my goals for fitness (Be Thin.) The first thing Isaac gave me was assessment. He asked where I wanted to go and why. Isaac did not accept skinny as an answer and pushed until I came to actualization myself.

I wanted to get thin because I wanted to like myself. I wanted to feel beautiful. I wanted to take the matches out of the hands of those whose comments were the fuel to my destruction. I wanted the power to go into any dressing room, be in front of any mirror, catch my reflection in a window, and be happy with what I saw. I wanted the power of self-satisfaction and feeling that I was worthy enough to feel at peace with my body. The next thing I got from Beometry was accountability.

Coaches at Beometry serve their clients and strived to learn new things. The team challenged me to seek beyond myself and celebrated the small accomplishments. They set up personalized workouts and modified them to me. For the first time in my fitness journey, I felt seen and heard. I saw the changes and was proud of the progress.

Over time, the scale turned back into an object. Eating turned into a way to treat my body with respect, and the gym turned into an oasis. I flipped from a non-gym person to having exercise be a non-negotiable in my life. I reclaimed my body and realized that the clothes do not dictate me but serve me. (no matter what number the scale says!) I learn new things about fitness and health every day from Beometry, but the critical idea they have taught me is self-investment. My body, my mind, and my life deserve to have respect and love brought to them.

I deserve to respect my body with nutritious foods, a healthy diet, and physical support. I swear if I can come to peace with my body, so can you. Now three years later, I come to you as a team member. I plan to write weekly blogs about my fitness journey. Some of these blogs will be personal and target my experience and the experiences of those around me.

Some will be based on research and expose various fitness fads and trends. Some will be about me experimenting with new workouts and being the "Beometry guinea pig." (Self-coined phrase)  Follow me as I embark on this personal and educational journey of trying new fitness and health adventures!

Until next week!

-Eleanor