Let me tell you about my journey…
My name is Christina Malone, I’m a body inclusivity coach and speaker who helps people feel at home with their bodies. In many ways, I’m your average 30-something navigating having a career, a relationship, learning to handle changes with the pandemic, and an optimistic person that’s full of sarcasm and joy.
And I have a big, plus-sized, fat, strong, body.
I was born big, and I’ve always been big
As a child, I experienced extreme bullying from my classmates, and unfortunately, from the adults as well the systems designed to protect us. As a result, I learned that my body was wrong, and that I wasn’t safe.
I love fitness, and always have. I played volleyball, rode horses, went hiking. But I was always “the fat kid” on the team, and had to justify to every coach that I was good enough, and better than my body
I began cutting food, extreme dieting, and using exercise as a way to punish my body for the ways I thought it was failing me because it never became small enough that I felt safe
By the end of college, signs started showing of early organ failure, and still, my body never really became small enough that I was safe from other people’s judgment...
Living my fullest life in my big body
Powerlifting changed my life. It’s a sport where my body’s natural state, being big and being strong, was not seen as a bad thing, but rather, something to work with in a positive way. I kept training, getting stronger, and started competing. My mindset changed from needing to prove I was good enough despite my big body to knowing I was always enough and so was my big body.
Almost four years later, I’m a national level athlete, broken state records for how heavy I can squat, and I’ve found freedom in learning to love my body for everything that it has always been. I’m wearing bikinis, shorts, and crop tops. None of this would have been possible if I was still abusing my body, and chasing the goal of being smaller.
So what was my turning point?
One day, I was running in my neighborhood when a car slowed down and two men started saying sexually aggressive things about my body. I kept going, and it just got more and more insulting and violent. I turned down a small street, and was able to get away from them.
But I kept running. I ran until I looked down, and saw that my sneakers were red. I literally ran until my feet bled.
That was the turning point for me, I remember thinking “If this is what it takes to be ‘healthy’ or ‘small’, then this is ridiculous””
I didn’t want to live the rest of my life chasing what someone said my life was supposed to be.
I found a body positive counselor, and found a gym that specialized in being accepting of all bodies, all people. Eventually, my coach there suggested I try powerlifting.
Big body. Big heart. Big mind.
I live a big life and I’ve never felt safer in myself.
My passion is finding ways to help other people find peace with their bodies, learning to appreciate everything they are, and how to be in fitness as a big bodied person. Being able to help others who are hurting, stuck in the cycle of diet culture and body negativity to learn to love themselves, find their peace, and learning to come home to their bodies is my purpose.
It’s your one body, your one life.
Let’s live it all the way up, and full to the edges, taking up space.