It’s numbers Body Image series from Yahoo Life, delves into the journeys of influential and inspiring characters as they explore what body confidence, body neutrality, and self-love mean to them.
if Katie Austin I learned one thing as one of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit‘s 2022 Rookies of the Year This comparison doesn’t get you anywhere when it comes to your relationship with your body. This is why it paved its own lane.
“I’m just like a real normal girl Sports Illustrated. I think I model, to be honest, because I’m not like the typical model,” she told Yahoo Life. I really want to be that ordinary girl. This also applies to my fitness brand.”
It might seem like an unlikely target for the daughter of an ’80s fitness icon Denise Austin, who developed her career at a time when women’s fitness was being marketed as a way to lose fat and lose weight. However, Katie says those outdated ideas about exercise weren’t preached at home.
“A lot of her tapes are like, ‘Lose the last 10 pounds,’ and they’re also about losing weight. But during my childhood and growing up, there wasn’t anything about weight loss and numbers on the scale or anything like that,” she explains. “I think it’s because I was an athlete. My dad was a pro tennis player, so it was always about working out to get stronger and training for something, it was never about aesthetics. I wasn’t training or running because I wanted abs and I wanted to lose weight or I wanted to drop a lot of inches on my waistline.”
Her parents’ shared philosophies when it came to exercise focused on physical health and even mental health before that conversation became mainstream. Austin remembers learning.
But that doesn’t mean she’ll be immune to the toxic messages of diet and exercise culture she was exposed to once she got out of the house—especially as a college sport.
“In college, there was no focus on mental health and it was all about strength through…it was always a battle,” she says. “That’s when my anxiety really started, when I got into college and started playing lacrosse.”
Much attention has been given to Austin’s diet and exercise as it relates to her success in the field. While her body image coincided with her identity as an athlete for much of her upbringing, that relationship really began to suffer after college.
“I’ve never in my life had a weird relationship with food, but as an athlete they feed you way too much and load up on carbs and you have to squeeze a couple of Muscle Milks after a workout just to make sure you’re getting protein,” she explains. . “I didn’t train like that anymore, so my body couldn’t take it.”
Austin says that not only did she experience a kind of loss of identity as her athletic career ended, but she also experienced disharmony with her body for the first time because she was no longer training for her sport. For eight months, I ran. “I accidentally lost a lot of weight,” she says. Then she realized the need to focus on selecting a new regimen that would fit her updated lifestyle.
“I stayed very internal about it. I don’t think I ever talked about it,” she says, wishing I had. “It can be really hard to get out of something, if you’re stuck or if you’re not motivated, you’re not inspired. To have a community and ask for help with it is really important.”
When she could not find such a community, Austen sought to create it. Her mission was to be her own coach after losing that team structure in her life, but also to be relevant to her approach. It was not her intention to follow her mother’s path as a fitness professional. However, she took the opportunity to replicate Denise’s journey for her fans.
“I feel like I have a very unintimidating brand of being really the average girl. I work out 30 minutes a day, I eat honestly crap like 70% of the time and I just want to show it like, you can do both, you can be both. And then you can be both.” Also developing a brand, being an entrepreneur and being a member of it Sports Illustrated Swimsuit“, as you say.
Even after walking alongside her 65-year-old mother on… Sports Illustrated Swimsuit runway And she was named Rookie of the Year along with her best friend and teammate Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Kristen Harper, Austin avoids comparison and prioritizes her happiness when it comes to setting her goals for 2023.
“It’s really important to remember why you work out. Not to fit into these beauty standards, but to make sure you feel your best. You work out not because you hate your body, but because you love it,” she says. . “I have the best relationship ever between me and my body and it’s not an overnight thing.”
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