I am sure you can’t even count how many times you have been in a conversation with someone who has an issue and you can plainly see what the problem is yet they are completely dumbfounded.  Most likely you, just like everybody else, lost your patience and told them how to fix it without even letting them finish their story.  They could be crying, whining, mad—who knows, but all you know is that you didn’t have the time to listen to the story any further because “THIS” is the problem and they need to fix it.  At that time, whatever advice you gave them seemed like “common sense” to you but I can guarantee you, you were speaking Swahili to them.  Why?  Were you not making sense?  Are you just that much “smarter” than they are?  Are you the ultimate in wisdom?  Umm…that’d be a negative on all of those questions because at that time it had nothing to do with what they knew (do you really think she thought it was ok that her man went on vacation with his friends to the Hedonism resort? Really?) it had everything to do with what they were *willing* to see.

There was a time in my life when I standing in the middle of a forest, crying my eyes out, desperate as all get out, *leaning* on a tree mind you, rummaging through my bag looking for a compass, GPS, or whatever to help me find a tree!  Have you ever been there?  We never see where we are, what we have or what we could do in the midst of the problem until we are either on the other side of it or better yet…gain understanding in the process.  Luckily for me I have some amazing friends who didn’t try to “fix” my problem but instead, took time to point out things in my life that gave me understanding so I could, in turn, fix my own problem.  I pray that the following descriptions can do for you what my girlfriends did for me with what I was going through at the time:

Sad thing is, I am just this happy and goofy looking.

I HATE my butt—it’s so big!

No it’s not…your top is too small.  Guaranteed whenever I hear this from a girl, it’s not that she’s big on the bottom, it’s that she’s too small on the top. So what you see is the imbalance between top and bottom.  I’m sure you want to make your booty smaller but some of that is just you girl, and you can only squat, lunge, sprint, etc. so much of that away and at some point you are left with you.  Some of y’alls would remove your booty altogether and replace it with a loaf of bread so that it’s still soft but it’s now contained. Haha!  So what trees are you missing?

• If you have a big booty, you have a small waist.  Period.  And what a gift that is.  You cannot exercise, crunch, plank or twist enough to make your waist smaller.  It is what it is.  And a small waist line is pure femininity and pleasing to the eye so while you pinch, poke and sneer at your butt the rest of us want to lynch you for your gorgeous waistline.  Phooey on you!
• You can tighten without getting muscular.  Not a good thing if you want to have a ton of muscle, but most of you do not—you want to be firm with shape without being overly muscular so go for it!
• You can gain weight and no one notices!!  Why?  Because you have a small waist!  Everything on you will get bigger EXCEPT your waist.  The upside: do I need to mention?  The downside: you will never have shredded abs.  No lines ever.  But who cares—you look like Halley Berry!
• You are pleasing to the eye—well…not yours—but everyone else’s!

I have no hips!

You’re right…you don’t.  In fact, you look like bookmark without the tassel so what do you think about that?  Your measurements are 36-36-36 and someone once used you as a plumb line for something they were measuring.  I’m sure you complain that you look like a boy and you have a thick waist and yadda, yadda, yadda.  Ok, are you done picking on yourself?  Let’s look at your gifts because you have many:

• You make muscle easily.  What takes the ‘hip’ girl months to do in the gym, you can do in weeks.
• Your abs are waiting for just the right block of cheese to come by so you can shred it.  You have more “packs” in your abs than a 12 pack.  It’s ridiculous.
• You have thin skin.  This means even at 16% bodyfat you have veins a-poppin’ and noticeable muscle separation.
• You lose weight easily.  (The hip girls are about to smack you around so keep moving quickly!)
• Typically you have great legs.  If you don’t, see below.

I have no quads or hams!

You ladies are brutal to yourselves.  You call yourselves tree stumps, uni-leg, snausages—if it’s derogatory about your legs, you’re calling it out.  As much as I can’t stand listening to it, I have to say some of y’alls have had me on the floor with the one liners.  What’s your gift?  Best of both worlds:

• You have a small waist line—not tiny but you’re not a boy either.
• You are shredded from the waist up so you have all the gifts of the boys.
• You lose weight easily—in your upper body.  Not so much the lower.  In fact, I don’t care if you choose to freeze your legs and then try to carve them with a knife—nothing is going on down there without a battle.  Is it hopeless?  No.  But you can give up having a defined quad and bulging hamstring naturally.
• You are typically symmetrical in terms of overall size but not in terms of body fat distribution.

These are the most popular body types that I see and each one has its share of gifts.  Stop focusing on the negatives and start highlighting your positives. You’ve been chasing a body that’s not even yours because you think yours isn’t worth the time.  Look at how wrong you are! There are many more because we are all so unique but this sums up about 80% of all women.  I didn’t mention the girl with the big arms or the girl who is big on top and small on the bottom but I will.  I am about to go through all of these again but with ‘what’s the best way to train for their body type’ type of slant.   It’s not a definitive Bible—nothing is—but it will help you if you are the one in charge of your own journey.  Cool?  Enjoy the day if you live in New England…it’s gorgeous out today! WOOP WOOP!