I had two separate conversations this week about body image and specifically the soundtrack in my head and the head of anyone who doesn’t fit society’s norm.

One aspect of both of those conversations was an article I read a few months ago about women not being in photographs with their children because they were not yet skinny enough, put together enough…generally not anything enough to be photogenic. As it turned out we were then raising a generation of children who will have a minimal photographic record of their mothers.

I am guilty of that, way more comfortable behind the camera than in front.

Then today this article came up on my Facebook feed and upon reading it, wept.

So you’re feeling too fat to be photographed . . .

and I quote….

Can we agree to put the value of family over the value of fat? Can we just accept that the weight you’ve been trying to lose for 5 years might actually just be a part of what you look like . . . and that if this magical day does come when you’re acceptably thin you’ll STILL regret not having any pictures of you with your kids from ages 5 – 10? Can we acknowledge that the insecurities we have in our heads will never be a part of how our children, husbands, and friends see us? Can we just please let our loved ones remember the YOU they love?

Wouldn’t that be amazing, to quiet that voice? To ignore the fear, the worry the self hate, and to love ourselves unconditionally?

This blog is about me, my journey, my efforts to get healthy, to meet some goals, and yet there are only two pictures of me taken in the last 5 years, to be found anywhere on this blog.

How will you know what I achieve? How will I know?

This is the biggest battle to fight.

To take that first step, raise the sword in this battle, I’m posting a photo taken at the Visioning Workshop. I opened the photo on my Blackberry when it was email to me, and immediately closed the photo. I hated me it.

But this is me today, or rather 7 days ago. I still look like me, and me is what I look like. And the good, kind, compassionate person that I am, just happens to look like that. And the person that looks like that, will be finishing a biathlon in a about 12 days…

I still can’t look at the photo, have to sort of look at it sideways…like a shadow or a ghost.

Step one, walk the walk.

The rest will follow…I hope so anyway.