Body Peace: The Ultimate Revenge

By Maria Scrimenti, Guest Contributor

I was 18 when my high school sweetheart, my first love, started hanging out with another girl.

I was crushed. Devastated. Completely heartbroken.

I went to the gym and cried.

I went to work and cried.

I went to sleep and cried.

I couldn’t get through a single day without crying.

Eventually, I had no tears left to cry (shoutout to my girl Ariana Grande), and I knew I needed a fresh start.

What’s the best way to get over an ex?

Well by getting yourself a revenge bod, of course.

So, my mom and I started training for a Couch to 5k program.

I hated it.

Running felt awful, but my ex was a bodybuilder and his new girl was fit, too.

I had to try to keep up.

I didn’t want to get back with him, I wanted to get back at him with my sexy new body.

That was the beginning of my obsession with my body, my appearance, and food.

What started as a way to get back at an old high school boyfriend became an integral part of my identity.

I got certified as a fitness instructor while studying exercise science in college. I didn’t just want to be a fitness instructor. I wanted to be THE fitness instructor. I landed one dream job after another and achieved peak physical fitness, all while downward spiraling into an unhealthy fixation with exercise and “clean eating,” resulting in body dysmorphia and binge eating disorder.

I thought that being the fitness girl made me the model of “health.” I wanted to teach other women to be “healthy” like me.

But if I’m being honest, it wasn’t really about health. It was about thinness.

It was about safety. It was thinking that, maybe if I was hot enough, my ex wouldn’t have left me.

Constantly trying to be “hotter” was a way for me to protect myself so that my heart wouldn’t get broken again.

This is the inevitable result of growing up in a culture that places such a premium on female beauty.

I had learned to attach feelings of success and worthiness to my weight and my appearance.

It felt like my life’s purpose was to be desirable.

But after years of undereating & overexercising, it eventually became too much to sustain.

I reached a breaking point and I had a decision to make.

I could pursue thinness for the rest of my life, costing me my peace, my well-being, and my sanity, or I could learn to work with my body, rather than against her.

It finally occurred to me that, by constantly trying to be as “hot” as possible, I was still letting my ex have power over me. Years after the break up, I had never really stopped striving for that revenge bod. It was never good enough.

I started to wonder if maybe the ultimate revenge was making peace with my body, no matter how she looked. Maybe it was finding a deep sense of self worth outside of my appearance. Maybe it was refusing to make myself small and palatable and attractive for others. Maybe the ultimate revenge was to reject an oppressive culture that told me I had to be skinny to be loved.

When punitive movement and food restriction no longer aligned with my values, I had to find a new way of relating to my body. I decided to give yoga a try. 

I’ll be honest, I didn’t love it at first. 

Building a mind/ body connection was foreign to me. 

After spending so many years entirely disconnected from my body, connecting with her felt uncomfortable. 

But I kept showing up, because my old comfort zone no longer served me.

Slowly but surely, yoga became a fundamental part of my identity and an essential part of my recovery. 

It offered a safe space to cultivate the relationship with my body and with myself that I had always craved.

Instead of forcing my body into submission, yoga encouraged me to start asking for her input. 

How did she want to move?

Did she need rest? 

And around food...

Was she hungry?

What did she want to eat? 

Yoga taught me to honor my body as my home.

It taught me to meet her where she’s at, exactly as she is.

It taught me acceptance. 

I stopped wishing for her to be anything different than what she is right now. 

I began to respect and appreciate her for the first time. 

And it changed my life.

So it is no longer my mission to help women shrink.

It is my mission to help you expand… to live fully, freely, and with agency.

To become empowered.

To know that you are so much more than your physical body.

You are worthy exactly as you are right now, not a “couch-to-5k” from now.

You deserve to feel whole, healthy, and well on your own terms, not to fit into some narrow, expensive, and always just-out-of-reach beauty standard.

You deserve peace.

I don’t help women change their bodies anymore. I help them change their minds and transform their souls.

Because the problem never was with their bodies. It was the way they were taught to view their bodies.

Making peace with food and your body is about living for you, not an ex or a culture that tells you that you don’t belong unless you’re thin.

The mission now is not to belong to others.

It is to belong to yourself.

Maria Scrimenti is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor who helps women make peace with food and feel confident in their bodies without dieting. She specializes in "emotional eating", body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating such as chronic dieting and binge eating. She loves fresh flowers, singing and dancing around the kitchen, and leisurely Jeep drives through Nashville in the sunshine with the music loud. Essentially, she is passionate about living joyfully and freely and is dedicated to helping others live the same way. Maria has appeared on several podcasts and has been quoted in articles for PsychologyToday, PopSugar, Yahoo, MSN, the National Wellness Institute Journal, and more. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise Science, and almost a decade of experience in the fitness industry with certifications in 7 different fitness modalities. She has completed 60 credit hours of Master's- level coursework in Counseling, is a Certified Health & Wellness Coach, and a fitness instructor at Vanderbilt University. She also completed the Yoga & Eating Disorders Mentoring Group in 2021. Maria adores her work and is on a mission to help women leave shame and “should’s” behind so they can embrace and connect to their truest, most vibrant selves. Follow Maria on Instagram @mariascrimenti.