As if a pregnant Girl wasn't stressed enough, Part 1

     This will be the first of two posts regarding a magazine I picked up for FREE at the reception desk of my OBGYN last week. If you don't like soap boxes or get offended easily, the little X is located at the top right corner!
     My computer died today, literally died, so during naptime I overflowed the ol' jacuzzi tub with bubbles and took the plunge with a stack of baby and pregnancy magazines that my OB had stacked up at the cashier's desk last week. I don't get magazine subscriptions, but I'll gladly take a free one! I only got through one magazine because I was so shocked at the audacity of Fit Pregnancy Magazine to think anything they were offering in their publication was FIT...
     As if a pregnant girl wasn't stressed enough, they throw magazines like Fit Pregnancy presents Mom & Baby right at you. We stress enough already as non-pregnant ladies about our looks, size and the daunting number on the scale, we don't need magazines that scream GET YOUR POST BABY BODY BACK on every page while we are growing to be the size of buffaloes! They act like you are supposed to be on the yoga mat and back to your wedding day weight the day you sign your discharge papers from the delivery room. UGH! It just un-nerves me that the media, i.e. Hollywood, can so easily make us believe that we are overweight or unfit if, first of all we eat fast food, eat anything non-organic or don't do pilates or yoga at least 3 times a week....come on...reality people!
    I know what some of you might be thinking...that's easy for her to say, she's skinny and petite, she doesn't have weight issues....Well my dear, my mascara clumps just everyone else's. Size is relative. What is small/skinny to you, isn't what I view as small or skinny. You might think you look fat, but I think you look healthy, happy and beautiful. I stress about my weight and size just as much as the next girl. I currently have pants that range in 4 sizes in my closet and all have been worn in the last year, not including my maternity clothes! Jim and I are very healthy people, he more than me, we exercise regularly, well he does...okay, Jim is a very healthy person. I am forced to watch what I eat. Have you seen my family lately? Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol...this includes all my blood sisters, my biological mother, her mother, her father...all of them...gotta love my gene pool! With this in mind, I eat modestly and stay away from a lot of fried foods. It's very easy for me to gain weight. We don't eat organic, I tend to choose the healthier, least amount of sugar, of the two cereals. We eat ground turkey, mostly because it's way less expensive and if we didn't, we'd eat extra lean ground beef. I stay active, I don't live a sedentary lifestyle, that's impossible with my two little boys.
     My point being, I just don't understand why there needs to be a magazine specifically for staying fit during pregnancy....exercise and eat healthy...isn't that all that is needed? Instead of the constant reminder on every page that we are ballooning as we read each article title, can't it just tell us how beautiful we are, no matter how big our 'cankles' are and regardless of the amount of weight we have gained? How hard would that be?
     In this particular issue, the Fall 2009/Winter 2010 one, I came across one article that I thought might actually be interesting and useful...Milk Mates: Nursing Bras You'll Love to Wear-Really! I browse through them, ah ha, there's one I have, what do they say about it...{Room to Grow-Medela Comfort Maternity Nrusing Bra-Your breasts can swell to pornstar proportions when your milk comes in...} OH MY WORD...My jaw dropped. I read this to Jim this evening and he said, what kind of trash are you reading? Exactly!!! What mother in their right mind wants their breasts, nursing ones at that, to look like a pornstar's...UGH! I mean, as if! Right....am I the only person who finds this appalling...Don't you dare compare my chest, what God uses to meet the nutritional needs of my newborn child to a pornstar. Seriously, people think this stuff?
     I don't know, maybe it's my conservatism or just my faith in knowing I have a God who loves me no matter how fit or fat I am, but I find the public obsession with a woman's weight and size absurd. Even at my heaviest weight and plumpest size, I found assurance in Scripture that I am beautifully and wonderfully made. That's when I have felt the best, the skinniest and the most beautiful!

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14

 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7