Hey all! Now, this is a heartfelt post that I have always wanted to share with you all. If you follow @athleticavocado on Instagram, you may have seen that I (Bethany) got married to the love of my life, Luke. God wrote our beautiful story and it was his hands that brought us together in ways we could not have even imagined.
Now I know this post will probably resonate with some of you girls who are married or are brides-to-be. I can say first hand that the pressure to lose weight for your wedding is REAL. But I think for me it was more so the pressure I put on myself, not necessarily from other people or society.
A little backstory- Rachel and I used to be competitive college gymnasts who had disordered eating. We always vainly tried to be the fittest we could be by working out too much and severely undereating. We both didn’t even get out periods until age 22 (sorry TMI). While I’ve grown so much since then (Praise be to God!), I still have my struggles. Insert pressure to be the fittest on my wedding day.
I had always pictured myself on my wedding day super proud of how fit/tiny I was. I always thought I wanted people to comment saying “wow look how fit/good she looks” or “she must have worked out a lot to look that way”. I thought getting those compliments on my body or the pride of knowing I lost weight would make me feel so good.
Then things changed when I got engaged. I was going through a rough period of body image and I saw how much it upset my husband (then fiance). It made him so upset when I would break into tears because I wanted to change my body so badly for the big day that he would burst into tears as well. He always told me “but I love the way you are NOW. I don’t want you to change. I will always love you for how you are, please don’t try to change. I fell in love the person/way you are now, not the way you the idealized person were in the past.”
And that was when I realized I shouldn’t lose weight for my wedding. I saw how selfish I was being and how I wanted self-glory and vanity of knowing how “good” I looked on that day instead of letting God have the glory. Changing my body would have stolen the glory from him. God didn’t want me to mess with my body as I have done many times before. He created me to glorify him, and that means honoring my body and not altering it to change how I thought I should look.
I would be lying if I said it was easy for me to let go of the want to change my body. But God is a good God and gave me the strength to turn away from vanity and self-glory and be all satisfied in him. Thanks be to God for giving me Luke, he is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. He sharpens me as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17) and points me to Christ always. I have grown so much in this Christian life through Luke.
And one more thing to remember, our bodies are not our own, they are a vehicle to glorify God! Changing it in any way demeans God’s intention for his perfect design!
I enjoyed reading your article on why you didn’t lose weight for your wedding, and I think it’s an important message to share with others. As someone who has struggled with body image issues and the pressure to look a certain way, I can relate to your story.
It’s refreshing to see someone prioritize their mental and emotional well-being over societal expectations and arbitrary beauty standards. Your decision to focus on being healthy and happy rather than losing weight is something that I think more people should embrace. It’s important to remember that our worth is not tied to our appearance or the number on the scale, and that true beauty comes from within. Thank you for sharing your story and inspiring others to love and accept themselves for who they are.