Yesterday I jumped on the band wagon, went into my old facebook albums.. 10 years to be exact. Im not going to lie; it was a trip seeing these old pictures. There weren’t a lot because quite frankly, I did not like being photographed back then. 

I had actually forgotten what I looked like 10 years ago, what I had not forgotten was the way I felt and the shift on the inside I had undergone in those 10 years. 

In my 10 year old picture I am 31. I am a new mom, standing with my baby girl. When I became pregnant, I was already the heaviest, I had ever been and then I gained 70 lbs during pregnancy … surprise surprise I did not give birth to a 70 lbs baby! At 7 or 8  months pregnant, I stopped looking at the scale when it topped 200lbs. 

The next year, I was happy with almost all aspects of my life… really happy! I had a beautiful baby girl, a wonderful husband and family and a great life. But being happy did not mean I loved myself or my body. It wasn’t that I felt other people’s judgement, my husband adored me as I was,  it was my own judgement! Interestingly, I would never have looked at anybody else, overweight or not, and thought the things I felt about my own body. I would look at myself with disappointment, as if I had let myself down. 

My Oprah lightbulb moment came one day in the bathroom. My baby was a year old, I was getting in the shower and I caught a glimpse of my naked body. For a moment I felt disgust, but then it hit me; “what the f**k am I doing to myself? How dare I look at this amazing body of mine, a body that has carried a child, and feel disgust and shame? Is this the role model I want to be for my daughter? Someone who does not love herself?.. Her own body?”

My epiphany was not “I need to loose weight”, my epiphany was “I need to remove the option of self-loathing”. That meant loving my body, whatever size and shape it was;  loving my body so damn much that I would only want to give it the best. 

I shifted. I started looking at myself with loving eyes ( and yes.. I faked it till I made it) and when I ate, instead of grabbing what was easy I would ask myself “would I want my child to eat this?” The love for my child was endless and unconditional and I needed to love myself like that too. 

The shift on the inside caused the shift on the outside; because I loved myself, I no longer stuffed myself with McDonalds and soda, my yoga practice became a daily occurrence, not because I was chasing a six pack, but because it made me feel good. Eventually I stopped craving the fastfood, my tastebuds still loved sugar, but they also loved whole foods. The more I practiced yoga, the more my awareness of what my body needed… what made me feel good, grew. What I learned was that for the physical change to happen permanently, there had to be an internal change first. We can diet and exercise till the cows come home, it. does. Not. Matter. If you dont truly love and appreciate your own body. 

My 2018 picture was me,41 years old… on the cover of a major fitness magazine. Looking at the two pictures it was like looking at two different women. People commented in amazement on the physical transformation, but I got to be honest; what I see in those two pictures has nothing to do with size or muscles… its the internal transformation of a woman; a woman who decided to stop loathing her own body and love herself. 

Are you ready to start your internal transformation? Join Nina Jarnum on retreat www.ninajarnumyoga.com/retreat My real #