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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Owning Strong, Disowning Skinny

Today's Eat-Clean Diet Vegetarian Cookbook guest blogger is Erin Salb. I love her honesty as she reveals her struggles with bulimia to finally embracing her beautiful athleticism. She has a powerful message. Share this with the young girls in your life, too. Strong is beautiful. 
Erin finally owning strong!
Skinny.  I have tried to grab onto this word since young adulthood, but to no avail.  It has eluded me time and time again, no matter how desperately I have craved just a touch of it.  Even suffering from bulimia could not connect me with this word.  I spent nights after a binge and purge, crying on the bathroom floor, wondering why skinny seemed so easy for others to hold yet somehow was always just beyond my grasp.  I was eventually cured of my bulimia habit, yet I wasn’t cured of my desperate need to own skinny.

Growing up I was always an athlete with the corresponding build.  I was a strong girl, able to bench press my body weight at 16.  Strength never impressed me though, only skinny.  My dad tried to encourage me to embrace my strength and athleticism, but I never wanted to own it.  Girls were supposed to be slim, not muscular.

After my experience with bulimia, I became a vegetarian to take a stand against factory farming.  I soon discovered how being a vegetarian made me look and feel healthier.  This encouraged me to make other changes and I began to explore Eating Clean after becoming hooked on Oxygen magazine and Tosca Reno.


Eating Clean and a vegetarian diet have helped me to embrace food rather than loathe it; Oxygen and Tosca have shown me that despite what I believed in the past, strong really is beautiful.  

I’m finally embracing the strength and potential of my body and I have Tosca and my dad to thank for constantly inspiring me. My workouts are no longer about calories burned, but rather the muscles developed.

I no longer crave skinny; I crave strong.

And I have found that strong is much sexier to own.
With my dad, the man who inspires and encourages me each and every day.
Posted by Tosca Reno at 3:30 PM

4 comments:

  1. Hill ClimberMay 23, 2012 at 3:42 PM

    Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. I remember when I was in my teens and someone called me thunder thighs in gym, really eschewed my body image ideas. Strong is beautiful and I will continue to the send the message on to my daughters!
    Wendy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Papi's GirlMay 23, 2012 at 4:13 PM

    Beautiful story. I agree strong is so much sexier. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Subaru SarahMay 23, 2012 at 5:16 PM

    Hi Erin, Thank you so much for your story, you are truly an inspiration. I also suffered from bulemia and was never happy with myself. I remember talking to my doctor when I was losing weight and he said "when are you ever going to be happy and what # is going to be good enough." That really stuck with me and made me realize that it's about the journey, not the destination. Thank you for being healthy, strong and beautiful and helping us all realize that that doesn't depend on being "skinny" by hollywood standards.

    Sarah Dixon

    ReplyDelete
  4. eLBieMay 23, 2012 at 10:11 PM

    Thanks for sharing! I can very much relate to growing up having an athletic build, but always trying to be skinny. Now, I fully embrace my build because there are some women who have to work really hard to have what I have. Thank you for sharing your story!

    ReplyDelete

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