Anshula Kapoor recently took to Instagram to open up on her experience with getting fit, and the long, tasking journey that the process involved. Unlike many celebrities who claim to have thrived on love and fresh air, Anushla got real about the complications involved in navigating one’s body image, and the rationale behind wanting to exercise or be healthy, going beyond superficialities like weight and size.
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
What we love is that Anshula did not make this about dropping dress sizes or reducing her weight
Given how Anshula, an individual in her own right, is often scrutinised due to being Arjun Kapoor’s sister, she has faced even more body-shaming than most of us do.
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
Still, she held her head high and reminded herself—and everyone reading this—that her size or weight is not the sum total of who she is. On Instagram, she wrote: “For me today, being ‘healthy’ means so much more than what I look like in the mirror. It’s taken me almost as long to realize that my self worth isn’t tied to the shape of my body.”
Anshula did not gloss over the journey as an easy one
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
A lot of celebrities don’t get into the nitty-gritties of how hard it is to get fit. They don’t share the truth about the amount of work that goes into looking a certain way, in order to make it seem effortless. Anshula did us all a big favour and candidly expressed the hurdles one faces: “It took so much therapy. So many tears. So much uncertainty. Fear. Setbacks. Discomfort. Self-doubt. Then came the self-realizations. Thus began the healing… It’s been a two-year-long journey.”
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
Isn’t it nice when someone else, especially a celebrity, reminds you that you are not alone? Fitness is often a very long, ongoing process, and doesn’t happen overnight. Too often, we get frustrated with ourselves and feel like giving up because we wonder why we don’t look like Katrina Kaif even after a month of continuous exercising. Anshula’s experience is proof that it all takes time, and we need to be patient and kind to ourselves.
Anshula’s post is a reminder to unpack our negative self-image before embarking on a physically-transformative journey
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
You shouldn’t want to lose weight or look different because you think people won’t like you at your current size, or because you think you aren’t valuable or worthy of things at your current size. Such a mindset, often triggered by compliments on weight loss, can be a slippery slope, causing one to fixate on one insecurity after another, leading to endless self-esteem issues governing one’s life. That’s why the route Anshula took is such a nice, holistic example to take inspiration from.
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
Anshula also said, “One of my first steps to becoming a healthier me was to acknowledge that mentally, I wasn’t in the best place, and that I had to address what was eating me from the inside before I could even begin working on anything else.”
That part really resonated with us, because it showed how her priority wasn’t looking like a runway model, but feeling good about herself. Concern for one’s health, and a desire to take care of your body and nourish, refresh, and treat it well, should be the reasons behind wanting to lose or gain weight, exercise, or eat right.
“Life is too short to live it thinking you’re unworthy…”
Image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
Too often, we push ourselves to exercise, crash diet, or lose weight from a place of self-loathing, wishing to change our body because of its perceived flaws. But this approach to fitness eats away at our sense of self, and makes it impossible to have a healthy relationship with our body, with food, and with fitness in general.
Anshula’s own words sum it up best: “Constantly belittling or criticizing my imperfections and flaws isn’t doing me any good—regardless of whether that flaw is emotional or physical. I’m still learning to love the perfectly imperfect me that I’m discovering and leaning into, because life is too short to live it thinking you’re unworthy or unlovable. I am flawed, and still worthy.”
Yes, we are flawed, and still worthy.
Lead image credit: Instagram.com/anshulakapoor
