By Meg Williams

When I’m doing my daily surf of the internet, reading various news feeds and other guilty pleasures, there’s one kind of story that I always stop on: I just love those profiles on ladies who’ve decided to take control of their unhealthy habits, and in turn become fitter, stronger and happier. Read this incredible story for an example of what I’m talking about. Maybe it makes me kind of a voyeur, but I can’t help being eternally curious about how other women successfully manage the neverending love/hate relationship with food that so many of us deal with. Because hey, we’ve all been there. I know I have. Sometimes it feels like I’m on a pendulum, swinging healthy for a while, and then slipping back into my old stress-eating ways. So it’s somewhat bizarrely comforting to read these articles and remember I’m not alone. These ladies are damn inspiring because they’re not perfect—they’re real people who wake up early, plan ahead and strive to improve every day. That’s true badassery.

So what should you do when you’ve decided you want your life to have a fitness success story too? Well, there’s a whole lot of noise out there online, and if you’re not getting help from a trainer or another nutrition professional, it’s easy to drown in all the feedback from diet enthusiast bloggers: keno, paleo, vegan, gluten-free, Atkins, Mediterranean, and whatever just started trending while I write this article.

Kudos for the commitment, but if I were to follow these to the letter I’d also be putting enjoyment on a diet, too. I mean, I like bread! Do I really have to cut it out of my life cold turkey, or can we reach a compromise?

And that’s why my biggest takeaway from reading these feel good weight loss articles isn’t usually a specific tip or trick for getting healthy. It’s seeing how each woman individually finds what works for her. Being healthy is not one size fits all, internet be damned. The key is finding what you love, what you can live with. Because if being healthy is important to you, then you have to balance the sacrifices with the things you truly enjoy doing. And sometimes that means pizza. Not because it's healthy, but because pizza is AWESOME.

So if you’ve been exercising your butt off (literally) all week, and sticking to your diet, you should be feeling good. Go ahead have that bread day—just don't beat yourself up about it, ok?

Photo credit: CC BY 2.0 // Boston Public Library