Are you training for STRENGTH or the LOOK of Strength?

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRAINING FOR STRENGTH & TRAINING FOR THE LOOK OF STRENGTH ⁣
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After killing off the need to look small and thin, I wandered into the wavering and destructive world of needing to “look” fit, muscular, and like I could kick your ass instead.
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It’s a common progression from wanting weight-loss to needing to look like one of Super Woman’s sidekicks. 🦹🏽‍♀️ Especially if you grew up in the ’90s like me and walked into the new trend of “strong is the new skinny” in the 2000s.⁣

After seeing an incredible amount of women being praised for their look in BodyBuilding Shows and CrossFit competitions, I wanted a piece of that glamorous and "healthy" spotlight as well.
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“Screw looking thin, strong is healthier! I’ll just look muscular instead of skinny! I get more calories this way, too right?” -Christi a decade ago
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But here lies the problem within this thinking...⁣

This is just another way of saying, "I want to be skinny." But it's wrapped up and packaged in a wellness box.

That need to look like a certain form of "health" will get you stuck in the exact same position you got yourself in with dieting and needing to look thin.

⁣THE TRUTH?
Secretly, I used my body as a way of telling people who I was. I wanted to look muscular to try and prove that I was valuable, healthy, and that you accepted me. 😔 I can see this now looking back. Even though I disguised it as, "No, this regimented 1,500 calories a day is a lifestyle change!" I said as my disordered eating patterns and obsession around clean and healthy foods grew into a monstrous beast of self-destructive fury.

Health turned into an all-or-nothing battle between eating clean and healthy on the weekdays to bingeing and hating myself on the weekends.

I promised myself I would go into a gains phase where I would allow my metabolism to catch up and eat for muscle, NOT the scale or "look" of fitness.
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But as much as I fought for strength and wanted to go on a clean bulk, I saw the number on the barbell going up as well as the number on the scale. It secretly hurt me as much as I didn’t want it to. 😟⁣
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Although my muscle seemed to be increasing and I was hitting PR's left and right, the “look” of fitness was decreasing. ⁣
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Even though I was stronger than ever before, I didn’t “look” the part. So I stepped off the gain train and went back to a cut.⁣

I couldn't kick the thought of losing my identity as the fit friend. I thought that if I didn’t fit the bill of looking fit, then I wasn’t fit.
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For years, I tortured myself to stay in this vicious cycle, always blaming my willpower. I developed what I like to call, “trophy wife muscles.” They looked great but didn’t do a damn thing. They were weak and fragile on the inside but looked tough and cut on the outside. When it came time to prove it, those muscles were more about my ability to stay lean rather than training for the actual strength itself.

It took me years to get the courage to heal my relationship with food and walk into my biggest fear of possibly gaining weight to make peace with food to realize that you travel through phases of this journey to get to a peaceful and sustainable state around food and your body.
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I can remember it like it was yesterday.

It was a solid 6 months into my Food Freedom journey when a thought violently popped into my head like an exploding can of crescent rolls... 🥐⁣
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There are 3 Phases when you make peace with your body at a sustainable weight from extreme fitness:⁣

☝🏽You she’s the, “I need to lose weight mentality.”⁣
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✌🏽You go into the, “I don’t need to be a certain weight, now I just want to look strong and like I can kick your ass.”⁣
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🤯 You finally get to this realization. “I need to let my body tell me what it looks like after being involved in extreme fitness and allow it to find its most sustainable set point without interference.”⁣