the morning rant

There were these girls at the gym today, cute little high school kids, probably best friends, working out together. They were on bikes six or seven down from where I was running, and I seriously could not turn my ipod up loud enough to drown out their inane and incredibly loud conversation. I thought that perhaps once they started really working out they might become winded and grow quieter, maybe even stop talking completely. I am aware that we were not in the library, but it is a public place, and not everyone wants to hear about how Jessica and Mike were like totally making out at the dance, and she is such a slut and did you like see what Aubrey was wearing last night...blah...blah...blah. I'm probably a natuarlly onery person, especially when it comes to people in public places not respecting my "bubble", but these girls were 30 or 40 feet away and I still felt impossed upon. Normally I would move to a different machine, but this is January, and it'll still be a few weeks before the resolution-ers die out, and every machine was spoken for. After about 45 painful minutes they meanered over to the free weights to plague the meatheads over there. After they were out of earshot, the poor man next to them let out a huge sigh and said "thank goodness!" to which the other people around laughed and rolled their eyes. Apparently everyone else was just as annoyed as I was, so maybe I'm not such a big onery-pants. Was I that annoying and self-involved when I was in high school? The obvious answer is yes, but I really don't think I was that bad. At least I hope not. Sometimes I think it would be fun to go back to a time when the most pressing thing on your mind was passing your classes and clearing your skin, but then I remember all the insecurities that went along with it. I always thought everyone was looking at me and judging me, when they were all too insecure to really notice whatever I had going on anyway. And don't even get me started on body image issues. Having a baby was the BEST thing for me in that department. I loved being pregnant, my body was doing the coolest thing ever, what it was made to do, and I didn't have to even think about it. Luckily I had the healthiest, easiest pregnancy ever, (let's face it, we Miller girls are good reproducers) and I was able to keep working out through the whole nine months, and getting back into shape wasn't much of a struggle, in fact I weigh 14 pounds less now than I did before I got pregnant, back to high school weight actually. But my body is totally different. I have a lot more muscle tone from toting Sawyer around and from the BodyPump classes that I've become addicted to. I am in much better cardiovascular shape as well, and most importantly and miraculosly, I love my body. Any woman will tell you that's a HUGE deal. I am still not sure why creating and giving birth to a baby would make such a huge difference in my attitude about this, but thank goodness. I have spent WAY too much time and energy trying to lose weight and still not being happy with what I looked like. A lot of the blame for that I think goes to modeling and how even post-lipo at 135 pounds (and no longer menstrating) I was STILL not thin enough! Now I'm 150, and at six feet tall, I feel like a freaking hottie. I bought one of those body fat percentage scales though, and I do want to work on increasing my muscle mass still, I'd like to get down to 22 or 24%, right now I'm at 26, and in college I was 28, so that's going in the right direction at least. Once on Oprah there was a quote that struck me as so true that I had to write it down, I don't want to go find it now, but it was something to the effect of "a mother that radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually vacinates her daughter against low self-esteem." I know that's true because if my mom hadn't been like she was I would no doubt have developed an eating disorder or worse when faced with the pressure that I experienced in my little foray into modeling. I want Sawyer to be able to escape her teen years with as little body image crap as possible. She is such a precious daughter of God and I will do everything possible to make sure that she KNOWS that. I feel like I have been blessed to just know that my Heavenly Father knows and loves me; like that has been one of my gifts from Him, and no matter how crappy things have gotten, that knowledge has always buoyed me up, and helped me. I sound like a holy roller, but it's true. :)