Brooke Spencer, a college student from Ontario, Canada, was feeling confident. Then she decided to go shopping.
“Ahhhh changing room lighting. The lighting that can make you go from having a good day to wtf my body looks like that???” began the 25-year-old former bodybuilder in a Tuesday, December 5, Instagram post. “I’ve been there before countless times — it’s ruined full days for me.”
Spencer, who battled an eating disorder when she was competing on the bodybuilding circuit, revealed that fitting rooms have caused her to fall back into unhealthy behaviors. “I don’t know what it is about that damn lighting but . . . it makes those so-called ‘flaws’ . . . 7291819x more noticeable,” she wrote.
In the past, Spencer would have run out of the store crying. But not that day. “I’m not wasting any more of my limited heartbeats on hating myself,” she revealed. ”My body is beautiful is beautiful regardless of what lighting I’m in! And GUESS WHAT? Same goes for YOU!!!”
Spencer lamented the years she wasted “at war” with her reflection and revealed that she often spent family get-togethers crying in bathroom instead of eating her Nonna’s “good Italian food.”
“Personally, I’m done spending another second like that,” she vowed. “I am learning to love myself and my body more and more each day.”
Spencer’s message received more than than 1,000 likes.
“If I hadn’t spent the past three years working towards loving my body, that changing room would have led to a breakdown,” she tells Us Weekly. “That moment is when I realized I need to take a photo and post it on Instagram. I try to be as open and vulnerable and I don’t want to leave out any parts that I think could help others, even if it’s hard for me to post.”
