How This Body-Positive Influencer is Redefining the Postpartum Body
Updated: Aug. 14, 2018
How Sarah, aka @thebirdspapaya, learned to embrace her stretch marks and loose skin after losing 100 lbs.
Known as @thebirdspapaya on Instagram, Sarah Nicole, 33, has been documenting her life for the last 5+ years and has gained a loyal following thanks to her relatable relationship with her body (she currently has more than 75K followers). Scroll through her feed and you’ll see a mix of family pics, well-styled photos as well as vulnerable images of her “flaws.”
I met Sarah as part of the Nike Air Society, where we got together once a week with a group of inspiring women with the intention to ‘Live, Run, and Train’ toward personal growth and inspired by the lifestyle shoe of the summer, the Nike Air Max 270. As a new mom myself, I was inspired by Sarah’s attitude toward her postpartum body (a positive attitude that she admits took several years). After having three children in her early 20s, Sarah found her weight had crept up to 225 lbs. She acknowledged she wasn’t happy and that she was actually missing out on doing things with her kids. Fast forward to today and she’s got an amazingly fresh perspective on her body and is inspiring other women along the way. So, how did she get here? Read on for her story.
When did you realize you wanted or needed to make a change in your life? Tell me about that ‘aha’ moment.
“It was actually three ‘aha’ moments! The first was when I moved back to my hometown and I lost my anonymity in public. I felt shame and realized that it was because I was so unhealthy and hadn’t been taking care of myself. The next was noting that I wasn’t participating in my kid’s childhood. I was exhausted, always on the sidelines and just not living. The final one was when a photo was posted of me on Facebook that really woke me up to how much weight I’d gained and how out of control my health had gotten.”
(Sarah isn’t alone. According to a Dove self-esteem survey, 86 percent of Canadian girls who have low body self-esteem avoid engaging with friends and family or participating in important activities outside of the house.)
What were the biggest changes you started with?
“I think this was the first time I truly recognized that I couldn’t loophole health. I couldn’t just diet and restrict my life, and I couldn’t outrun a bad diet. I had to approach this all differently. I had to be accountable for my intake and really change my relationship with food. That, and I had to start exercising. Even if it was minimal I knew it was necessary. While hard at first, now it just seems like a way of life.”
Why did you make your journey public and share it with the world on Instagram?
“I never intended to, actually. I had lost about 30 lbs before anyone really noticed or said anything. So around the 40 lbs mark I shared a little before and after, and really felt like I was finding the support and encouragement I needed to keep going. So while my Instagram was never just about weight loss, there was now a huge facet of my life that people were connecting to and it really changed the way social media played into my own journey.”
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You’ve built an amazing community on Instagram and Facebook – why is this kind of support so important to your journey?
“I think personally, you always feel like there’s a wall between you and those you follow on social media. They feel out of reach. I wanted to change that. I know and recognize that I am nothing without this community, and it’s not about ‘me’ it’s about us all, and I’ve truly built friendships out of this platform. I feel like it’s this big massive extended family. So much love and support all around.”
I think it’s pretty rad the way you embrace your postpartum body – stretch marks and all. You own it and it’s beautiful. How did you get to that point?
“After losing 100 lbs and being faced with the reality that I still hated my body but now there wasn’t anything I could do to exercise my way out of (loose skin and stretch marks) I started reevaluating my mind and thoughts around my body. I was exhausted that after all this work to achieve a new healthy lifestyle I was still battling daily with self-loathing. I had anticipated that losing weight would solve that issue. But you can’t hate yourself happy. So, with that, I began shifting my thoughts over and over. Practicing it, and filling my feed with women who inspired me to break out of my own discomforts. I stopped feeling so alone and wanted others to stop feeling so alone. So I began to share, too.”
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You recently had an almost heartbreaking situation where your Instagram account was temporarily deleted – what was going through your head when you realized what had happened?
“Shockingly, I was more devastated over all my words. My writings! My Instagram, intended or not, became an online journal of the last 5-6 years of my life. My entire journey through losing weight, going through divorce, single motherhood, embracing my body, and finding love again. I felt gutted. I felt like I lost my community and my friends and everything I’d built. But, in the end…that community showed up! They wrote messages and emails and made phone calls and it was able to be revived just short of 2 days later.”
What did you learn from that experience?
“I learned that it mattered, all of it. It wasn’t fluff of social media. It mattered. It mattered to me, it mattered to others. That first post (besides announcing I was ‘back’) I knew was going to be huge. I wanted it to be intentional, so I did the one thing I was always too ashamed to do before – show my stomach in its reality…up close, squished together, and with love. I handed my 10-year-old the camera, and she prompted me to put my hands into a heart. She snapped the photo, I posted it. I freed myself of the shame the moment I shared it, and I think I might have helped some others with a similar body do the same.”
Social media can be an amazing way to find your tribe but it can also open you up to unwanted criticism (the trolls!). How do you stay positive?
“I didn’t always stay so positive! It used to really break me down and wear me out. But, once you really know your truth and grasp your worth, it’s easier to laugh away when someone tries to really tear you down. It’s a dark side of social media that many don’t even know exists for those who put themselves out there daily, but it does, and I’m happy that in the end I’ve been able to really push through those efforts to tear me down.”
Related: 16 Epic Clap-Backs to Body Shaming
We got to take part in a journalling workshop with Temi Marie of HERDAY to wrap up our journey with Nike Air Society. What message did you take away from that session?
“It was fascinating to talk about our bodies and our life and our goals in such an open yet intimate way. I’d forgotten how writing down things really made a message register differently. It was a beautiful experience I felt so grateful to be a part of. From exercising our bodies together, to exercising our minds and hearts. Such a great experience.”
