Featuring Guest Blogger Aisha Nwandu

Sometimes, I hate my body. There, I said it. It feels great to get it out. But then i feel guilty. I was never heavy set. I was a size small & curvy, weighed about 55 kg throughout high school. Hell, I was nominated best body at some point (LOL, the things you remember) but i was never active or cared much about the things i put in my body. I just never ate much. Mostly because i was in a boarding school and the food was horrible. It was either you eat what was offered or go hungry. So naturally, most of us were losing weight or maintaining the same weight we had.

Now fast forward to my arrival to the United States, the land of fast food and busy workload. I was convinced I still could not gain weight because college is stressful enough, no way that stress will let me gain much weight. Boy was i fooling myself. The first 2 years was fine, i was still maintaining my weight but then my junior year of college, i was going through so much and was depressed so where did i turn to? You guessed it, emotional eating. I will binge eat indi’s fried chicken at 1am in the morning 3 nights straight. My heaven was greasy food and i could not get enough.

I look into the mirror sometimes and i don’t even recognize the person staring back at me. I am currently a size medium to large and i have some cool folds in my belly. I had to get rid of most of my clothes because they just do not fit the way they used to. I have tried looking into weight loss programs but most of them just do not work with my lifestyle or they are literally trying to get me to starve myself. I also just do not have the discipline to workout, eat clean and healthy and maintain a healthy lifestyle. So, I know there are solutions, i just need to work on them.

Body positivity is not easy. Whenever i talk about my body, people’s response is “well you know what to do to fix it, sooo.” If only they knew that it was not that easy. See, I need to lose weight because i want to, because i need to be healthier but i also need to love my body the way it is right now because losing weight might not fix how i see myself. This is very psychological and that’s where body positivity and body love comes from. If you do not love your body in its imperfection, what makes you think you will ever love it when it transforms to something else? You need to love your body in every single stage it is in because our bodies change, they will continue to change and we have to change our mind set along with them.

Below, i will share a couple of ways in which i have decided to celebrate my body this year and practice a healthier lifestyle.

1. I am going to invest in clothes that make me feel good, in clothes that fit my body and not waste my time buying clothes a size smaller so i can “lose weight and fit into them”
2. I am definitely going to stop weighing myself constantly because those are just numbers. I am going to focus on how i feel, how my body moves, how active i am, how much better i am doing in learning the yoga poses etc.
3. I am going to unfollow any accounts that make me feel terrible about myself. I am going to follow accounts that make me feel amazing about my body.
4. I am going to take more pictures and not worry about how my body looks, i am going to love my glowing skin, the amazing colors in the pictures, the background and most of all preserve the memory in the picture.
5. I am not going to beat myself up about eating a cookie every now and then. I am looking for a balance and not a do or die diet.

I know i have not been very good to my body over the years but I am learning how to take care of her, how to nurture her and i am unlearning every negative thing i have learned about her. I sometimes hate my body but i am getting to know her again and i am learning to love her again. Body positivity does not happen overnight, it is a process and a journey.

Aisha Nwandu is a Nigerian lifestyle blogger focusing on personal growth. She wants to inspire and encourage people through her personal experiences to keep working on themselves and understand that personal growth is vital to living a great life. She is also the founder of Kentucky Bloggers. A community she created to connect and promote bloggers, influencers and content creators based in Kentucky. You can find her on all social media platforms Aishadaobi and her website is Aishadaobi.com. When she is not busy creating content for her social media pages, you can find her at home, cuddled up with a good book and some tea or catching up on her favorite tv shows.