AUSTRALIA — One mom is striking back at the woman who posted a picture of her toned body following childbirth, asking other women what their excuse was.
Taryn Brumfitt, 35, is a mother of three who has been on mission to encourage women to live healthy and love their bodies at every shape and size. She calls her mission the Body Image Movement and earlier this year she became an internet celebrity after posting a very nontraditional “before & after” photo of herself on Facebook that went viral.
“I’m on a quest to redefine and rewrite the ideals of beauty. Women have been brainwashed into thinking fat, wrinkles and cellulite are bad. They’re not. It’s just a part of being a human being,” Brumfitt told the Daily Mail.
Recently, she caught the media’s attention with a blog post she wrote in response to a viral Facebook photo that was put up by a woman named Maria Kang. Kang, who is also a mother of three, put up a photo of herself, looking very fit, along with her three kids, the youngest being eight months old, with a caption that read ‘What’s your excuse?’ The photo sparked outrage among several women, and Brumfitt became a voice for them with her blog post entitled, “Dear Maria Kang…this is my excuse!”
‘To look like she does is (for most people) completely doable, if you are willing to sacrifice most of the things that you love. And I wasn’t willing to do that. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy hanging out with my kids, sleeping in on the weekends, eating what I want and when I want and having the occasional night out with the girls,’ Brumfitt wrote in her blog.
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She also addressed her critics, and wrote that she was not advocating a non-healthy lifestyle, but rather a healthy one that encompasses every part of what she considers health to be.
‘Health is physical, emotional and spiritual and so much more that is not visible and not always obvious to others,’ she wrote.
For Brumfitt, the love for her post-baby body was not always there. She said after her three children were born, she even considered having plastic surgery. In 2012, she went as far as visiting a doctor for a consult, and scheduled surgeries for a tummy tuck, breast lift, and breast implants. She said she almost went through with it until she had an epiphany moment one day as she watched her daughter, Mikaela, play.
At that moment, Brumfitt decided that if she was ever going to teach her daughter to love her own body, then she would have to be that example for her. She cancelled her surgeries, and even entered a sports figure competition, which she trained 15 weeks for, reaching her fitness goals without medical intervention.
In her blog, Brumfitt details the changes her body has gone through over the years, in sometimes extremely personal detail, as part of her mission to be real with both herself and her audience. She hopes to empower women (and men) to embrace their body and all the changes it will endure throughout their lives, and in turn discover real health and happiness.