Why? Because #IAmAKnockout

This is my "why", and this goes far beyond the 30 day knockout collective booty challenge. This little girl is the one I am doing this for. This little girl had no lack of self confidence as a young child. My dad used to tell me I was gorgeous and I would stand in front of the mirror, flipping my hair from side to side, with a sigh: "I'm gorgeous."

Fast forward a bit to elementary school: this little girl was taught to hide her body, to be ashamed of her curves. When I was younger, I often had a hard time shopping for clothes and especially bathing suits. I have always had a booty on me, and yes I was a chubbier kid around grades 4-7. I would often have to buy my jeans in the boys section of target so they could fit my bigger legs and butt. I remember countless times crying in dressing rooms to my mom because every bathingsuit I tried on would not fit my butt. I would take 5 steps and it would turn into a thong.

I was ashamed of my body, and I wanted to hide it. I would wear longer shirts to conceal it, and I thought I was ugly because I didn't look like all of my friends. I was the "funny girl". I was the girl who all the boys wanted on their kickball team, not the girl that boys had crushes on and for a while, that crushed me. I desperately wanted to be accepted and I didn't want to be ashamed of my body, I wanted to stop comparing myself to my friends (which was hard because they were all naturally very thin no matter what they ate.)

I started working out in the mornings with my mom at grade 6. I wanted to look like everyone else, but here's the thing: I wasn't a chubby kid because of bad habits, I ate very healthy actually. The fact was: that's just the way my body was, and is.

Fast forward a few years into high school. I got in trouble constantly because my teachers thought I was rolling my uniform skirt for it to be shorter because my skirt was always shorter in the back, but I never was, my butt just bigger. I was told I was not allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants at school because they were too "revealing", even though you could not see through them at all, and even though all of my friends were allowed to. I had a girl accuse me of trying to steal her boyfriend in grade 11 because I walked by him in my softball pants, which were tight and she saw him looking.

Let me preface this by saying: everyone's bodies are different. I naturally have a bigger booty, and yes I do work on it to try and keep it shapely, but big butt or little butt, you are perfect the way you are.

I am so thankful to my mother who instilled in me positive body image from a young age. She would do her damnedest to make sure that I knew that I was perfect the way I was and i had nothing to be ashamed of. I think back now and wonder what kind of view I would have of my body if it was not for my mom.

Fast forward yet again to graduating high school. I really became obsessed with fitness, not for vanity, but for how it made me feel. I started to appreciate my body, every part of it, for what it allows me to do. Yes, I have big thighs and a big butt, and they enable me to do all of the things i love: surf, run, play hockey, etc. Body love is so much more than just whether or not you like how you look.

This was the hardest exercise for me to master: not only accepting my body and its many curves, but genuinely loving it and taking pride in it. I love my curves. I would like to tone up a bit more, but at the end of the day, I wouldn't want to have a smaller butt or legs or look thinner because this is MY body.

Now, this past year has been a challenging one for me. I haven't really lacked confidence in this area since high school, until I got cheated on. That rocked me, and of course, the girl was super skinny, model body type. I couldn't wrap my head around it. I couldn't fathom how it happened, and even though I actually lost weight in the breakup. I felt like I "lost my sexy" and I wanted to bring it back, but for so long I just did not feel like that confident girl anymore.

It has been nearly a year since the breakup, and I've got it back, and The Knockout Collective has helped me with that tremendously. A mission and mindset of body love and working with what you've got, gave me that back. I feel like myself again, I feel like that confident little girl before society f**ked her mindset. Like a re-do button.

So this is my "why"---for that little girl who spent so much time doubting herself, being ashamed of her body, and it sucked feeling that way again this past year. So this is for her.

I wanted my sexyback, and this journey gave it to me. I want to challenge myself to stick with 30 days of booty burning workouts because of a few things: 1. my body does so much for me, time to show it some love back. 2. Summer is-a-coming. 3. I want to help other women like myself re-discover or maybe discover for the first time that hair flipping, "I'm gorgeous" feeling. 4. I'm not ashamed of my curves, I'm proud of them in fact and I want to show that-- Yes, you are allowed to feel that way. It is not vanity-- it is combatting a worldview that has been taught to every little girl: "You are not good enough", "You aren't thin enough, you aren't x, y, z."

I call bullshit on that. You are all drop dead gorgeous. Right. now. Not when you lose 10 pounds, not when you lose the baby weight, right now.

My ass has been a topic of discussion, whether I liked it or not. We live in a society dominated by "the booty" these days, probably due to the Kardashian craze, and the number one question I receive as a trainer is "how do I build a butt?".

So this challenge is 30 days. 30 days of dedication. 30 days of sweat, maybe some tears, but the challenge for myself and Emily and for all of you is to build some muscle, but really workout that mindset. We had this idea for a booty challenge a while back seeing as it is mostly requested by clients, but we did not want it to be just another challenge on the internet that you scroll past.

This is why we started the Knockout Collective. A call to arms for all women battling against negative body image and combatting the lies of the world. This is an army of badass women helping equip each other for those battles. So, I challenge you: do something that is something you've wanted to say, do or feel, but never really felt. Maybe write "i'm gorgeous" on your mirror in lipstick. Honestly, it seems silly, but it's little things like this that help build up that view. Say it, feel it, own it. You guys got this.

xoxo,

Hannah

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