Beauty and Motherhood

Continuing the Journey

When I ended my series on weight and motherhood, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I felt as though I had to make a plan to move forward, as I had put it all out there for everyone to read. When I saw people I knew, I wondered if they had read my series. Were they staring at me? Were they assessing how much junk I had in my trunk?

Okay, it wasn't really that bad. But it surely made me feel more self conscious. And I didn't just want to leave it at that. I wanted my journey with weight and motherhood to have a happy ending, and sooner rather than later.

Finding Answers: Researching Nutrition, Health and Motherhood

I began searching for a book. THE book. This is what I do. With any ongoing problem I have in my life, I eventually get to a place where I am at the end of my rope, frustrated and fed up. At this point, I get on Amazon.com. I hunt, browsing dozens of nonfiction books in the selected category: Parenting, homeschooling, health, gardening, parenting, homeschooling.

I realized while I wrote my series that for the past several years, I have read more nonfiction, self-help books about parenting and homeschooling than anything else. In fact, they are the ONLY nonfiction categories I've read about.

When I was about 19, I gained a lot of weight. As I got that under control, I really educated myself about nutrition. Well, that was 12-13 years ago! While writing the series, I realized I hadn't read a book in the category of health in a very, very long time.

I had looked at books about health. I even bought a couple. However, the ones I found in the past several years just weren't what I was looking for. I'm just not that interested in getting ready for bikini season. I won't ever be wearing a bikini again! No matter what weight I'm at, the stretch marks on my tummy from four pregnancies are not cute. And I live in Seattle, not Miami. I wear a bathing suit only a few times a year!

Yes, motherhood is beautiful. And I mean that. But
also notice that I am wearing a sweatshirt at the beach.
It's Seattle! That's what we do! You can understand why
having a "bikini body" isn't all that motivating :)

Being a "Hot" Mom vs. Looking "Like a Mom"

Also, I am SO tired of fitness and diet books for moms with taglines like, "Look Sexy the Way You Did Before You Had Babies Which Completely Ruined Your Body!" Yeah, I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. You know the kind of books I'm talking about. They always have some hot mom with stilettos walking with a stroller. Does anyone actually do that?

And it just makes me want to yell, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH LOOKING LIKE A MOM?!

I AM A MOM!

They make it sound like it's some disgusting, mutant, alien species.

Why do we have it so ingrained in us that we only have two choices? To struggle our whole lives so that we look like we did at 22, before we had any children. Or to let it all go and look totally frumpy wearing sweats all the time, with frizzy hair, wrinkles and an ever-growing backside.

The Beauty of Motherhood

WHO SAYS MOMS CAN'T BE BEAUTIFUL?

And not just the, "Wow! You look great for having four kids."

What does this mean? Am I supposed to look awful?

And who says we can't be mostly concerned about our health and well-being, but also care about the way we look?

I really wanted to find a book that mostly spoke about health, but also acknowledged that we all want to look beautiful.

Furthermore, I wanted this book to somehow be connected to my faith. I wanted to have a connection between my faith and what I put in my mouth and how I take care of myself. I knew that if I could find this connection, I would have a lot more success with managing my weight.

I researched. And I prayed about it.

And then, I found two books!

Soon I will share with you the two books that are really helping me in my journey with health, beauty, weight loss and motherhood.