Yes, I will admit it: I used stare at Cindy Crawford’s sand caked bottom regularly–of course, all in the name of getting fit.

At fourteen, and pursuing my own modeling career, I was an avid disciple of her Shape Your Body workout. Cindy had thighs, and muscles, and faint but real abdominal muscles. While I took that all that for granted back then as the normal configuration of the female body it is only now many years later that I realize what an anomaly that was–and what a stand she was taking for having them.

I saw a lot of emaciated bodies during my time in the fashion industry, and I’m sure she did too and was pressured to follow suit, but she kept those muscles–and still has them two decades later. Cindy stayed in control of her body and was all the more beautiful and powerful for it. I on the other hand, did anything I could to conform to my 90 lb counterparts, deeming them the standard of what was right and good. Anything.

I’m thirty years old now and I still find myself looking at other people as a point of comparison–though now of course I am usually looking at novels instead of navels. Either way, it only ever leads to negative thoughts and doubt. I think perhaps I’m finally ready to follow Cindy’s example and just do my thing.

So thank you Mrs Crawford, you inspire me.