Fitness blogger Ashlie Molstad has a message for her more than 60,000 Facebook followers: There is no such thing as a perfect body.
On Friday, November 11, the Portland, Oregon–based health and fitness coach shared two photos of herself. In one image, she stands in front of a door in a sports bra and underwear and her abs are completely flat; in the other, she sits in a chair and appears to have belly rolls.
“Same girl. Different angles,” Molstad began. “If I’m going to show you the posed, put together, professional sides of me, I’m gonna make damn sure you see the not so flattering sides too.”
“Loving ourselves exactly as we are is hard. Because we’ve been told for years that we’re not good enough until we {insert any of the thousands of ideas of perfection that has been fed to use over the years},” the 31-year-old continued. “But I call BS. I say that the real magic happens when we embrace who we are, at every angle and size.”
The 5-foot-5 blonde went on to reveal that she struggles with embracing her shape but noted, “I understand working on loving me is the most important job I will ever have.”
Molstad signed off with an important reminder. “Our bodies aren’t broken,” she wrote. “The message society is trying to tell us {by airbrushing everything, erasing dimples and rolls and fluff} is.”
Her post received 115,000 likes and more than 34,000 shares. “I have a similar body and beat myself up all the time but I look at both pictures of you and see absolutely nothing but a beautiful healthy girl! We are our own worst critics!!” one person commented, while another wrote: “My wife is so hot but so hard on herself. I’ve tried to tell her that NO ONE has a flat tummy sitting down.”
Molstad tells Us Weekly that posting the side-by-side pictures was “scary” but something she felt she owed to her followers. “I know it was a message that people needed to hear,” she says. “When I share my struggles publicly, it helps me realize I am not alone, it helps other people realize that they are not alone, and because there is strength in numbers, it helps us all heal a little bit, together.”
