Exercising for aesthetics is OK

 OK so hear me out. I have been consuming A LOT of content recently about how you should be training for the health and fitness of it all and how changes to your physique are simply a by-product of the work you are putting in. I whole heartedly agree. BUT as someone who had to lose the weight again after baby number two I really want to normalise and un-demonise eating in a calorie deficit and training at the gym in order to achieve a particular aesthetic. Especially at the beginning, your motives might initially stem from wanting to be leaner and lose body fat. That is OK. I accept your motives, they are not vanity, they do not necessarily mean you hate yourself or have a bad relationship with your body. They might just mean you are comfortable in yourself at a certain size or weight or when you look a certain way. 

Looking back on my own journey, when I first started losing weight pre baby number two, I didn't even know how I wanted to look, I just knew I wanted to be smaller. I think I remember wanting to fit into a size 12 (which is a bit vague considering a size 12 Zara is definitely going to fit differently to a size 12 M&S for example) but that was my goal and I didn't know what that meant regards how my body would look because I had always been a curvier size 16-18 throughout my adult life. When I reached that goal and further (I think I ended up a size 8-10/S in most brands) I had so much body confidence. Especially since I had been weight training at the gym so I was starting to see muscle definition, I had a flatter stomach with the faint outline of abs and I loved how strong my legs looked. So when I gained the baby weight and I ended up a size 14-16/L when I was nearing the end of my pregnancy, I knew that when I was ready to enter a fat loss phase again it was because I wanted my body to look a certain way again.

Because that is how I am most comfortable existing in this world. It's not because I want to shrink myself to please others, it's so that I can prance around with ease with my daughter and perform silly dances for my baby boy. It's so that I can comfortably put on my favourite jeans and they aren't digging in in certain places. It's so that I can feel confident walking into the gym in a sports bra and leggings to perform my workout, because to me when we feel like we look good, we perform better! Plus, call me old school, but I love to put on a cute outfit and see my partners eyes light up when he sees me, because he sees me as my most confident self. That's not to say that in time, when we are more comfortable in the body we exist in, our motives may shift from how our body looks to what it can do physically, like how quickly it can do a 5k run, or what your one rep max might be on a deadlift or back squat. But I hate to see people saying things like "you won't succeed in your weight loss journey if your sole focus is aesthetic" because I think that's unfair.

Your goals will change over time. You may even find that you work on a goal for some time and you don't ever achieve it, it might not become relevant to you anymore. When I was nearing the end of my fat loss phase (round 1) I remember saying to my coach that I'd like to know what my body looks like at 60kg. I'm 5'3 so technically that would still be a healthy weight for me and so he was happy to support that endeavour. I worked on it for a few months and the lowest number I saw on the scale was 63.8kg before I realised that if I put myself in any more of a deficit that my training would be impacted. I didn't want that. I still wanted to be strong and build muscle, so my target of reaching 60kg just didn't matter to me anymore. I LOVED the body I had achieved and I was loving building my strength in the gym, it made me feel empowered and in control of my body - something I hadn't always felt in the past. 

So I binned it off and instead set myself a new goal of hitting a particular one rep max on a few compound lifts (deadlift, back squat, shoulder press) and just focussed my nutrition and training around them. Sure, I saw the scale weight fluctuate in an upward trend but nothing substantial and nothing that made my feel uncomfortable in my body. In fact, I was rather in awe of the muscles I had built in my arms and shoulders. I revelled in the pure joy of the #musclemommy moments!

I fully support the body positivity movement. I also support women who may want to lose weight in order to feel comfortable in their skin. I was that woman after having my second baby. Ready to simply lose weight in order to feel like my true self again. I will add that I continued to strength train at the gym at least twice a week throughout my pregnancy so I managed to hold on to a lot of my muscle and so I am giddy and excited to see my body looking somewhat like it did before. Loose skin, stretch marks, thread veins and cellulite all included, all normal things to exist on a woman's body especially after losing a substantial amount of weight and carrying two children. 

So before you start to wonder if your intentions are going to set you up for failure after seeing a 20-something fitness girly with no kids and 5% body fat tell you that exercising to look good is bad for your mental health and you should be exercising to feel good, it is not true. It's your mindset and the good habits you enforce that are going to get you to where you want to be. And if your first long term goal is to fit into a certain clothes size, then you do you and I hope you make it there as well as feel good and build confidence in yourself on your journey.

Love Amber, xo