With all the hubbub in society today about the newest trendy diet to go on, juice cleanses, or weight loss supplements it becomes hard to not participate in any of the aforementioned at least once in a lifetime, if not more. At what point did society turn towards our idea of 'skinny' and dictate that that's what beauty was going to be?

I know the picture on the right might be modern society's definition of beauty, but I know it's not mine. At what point did we let other people start to dictate what our idea of beauty meant and how it affected us?

I recently stumbled across a young girl's blog about one of her food posts (@yourdailycupoffuel, hit her up) where she was talking about one of her healthy dishes and how her goal in the gym was to focus on getting 'Strong Not Skinny'. While I can't remember what the rest of her post was about, I do know that her idea of being strong over skinny is what resonated with me. I liked the idea of building myself to become emotionally and physically stronger. I liked the idea of becoming the girl who can take care of herself. I liked the idea of being able to define my own idea of beauty. While, yes, those tiny models on the cover of magazines or the skinny Victoria's Secret models are gorgeous, we can can't all look like we're about to walk down the runway all the time. It wouldn't be healthy if we all looked like that, and if we did that would make us all boring.

He created us in HIS image and you and I were made to be different. Let's embrace that. I'm not trying to bash this industry. Great strides have been made towards the betterment of society and beauty standards, but it's okay to check back in every now and then and not be okay with what we see. Everything doesn't have to be okay 100 percent all of the time.

So, instead of going to the gym to specifically burn calories and lose weight, I now go to the gym to get stronger and gain muscle. I want to see myself develop my physical and mental strength and focus on what is going into my body, instead of what I can deprive it of.

I want to be able to take care of myself. I want to make life my runway.

I want to focus on getting fit and how I feel from day to day.

I want to focus on gaining strength more than getting 'skinny'.

So let's all stop focusing on getting 'skinny' and instead direct our attention to getting stronger in mind and body and see where that newfound strength takes you on your special runway that is life.