Fitness guru who was bullied for her weight urges women to celebrate their curves

Nicole Mejia has opened up about self-acceptance. Photo / Instagram / Fit&Thick

A fitness guru who was taunted for being overweight as a child has opened up about self-acceptance while proudly flaunting her cellulite in an emotional online post.

Nicole Mejia, 28, shared a video of herself posing on a beach in a cutout swimsuit on her Instagram account, explaining in the caption that her body fat percentage is the highest it has ever been in the past four years as is her level of personal happiness.

The trainer and model then detailed how she had stopped approaching exercise in the hope that it would change her body's appearance, and had started focusing instead on her physical performance, the Daily Mail reported.

Mejia, who started her workout business Fit&Thick in October of 2013 after noticing the increasing popularity of curvier figures, was bullied and teased as a child due to her body shape.

She later discovered her love of fitness training and started working as a model aged 21, after a friend asked her to pose for her portfolio. Mejia has since worked with other artists and brands in addition to her fitness venture.

The trainer, who typically celebrates curvier shapes on her Instagram account and during her workout classes, took her approach one step further by sharing unedited footage of herself posing.

She accompanied the clip with a vulnerable message explaining how her fitness philosophy had changed after she found self-acceptance.

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A post shared by Nicole Mejia (@nicole_mejia) on Apr 8, 2017 at 1:59pm PDT

"Time for me to get real with you guys," the trainer wrote. "My body fat percentage is currently the highest that it's been since I started Fit and Thick. Funny thing is, so is my happiness and self-acceptance."

Mejia then explained that she once sought to ''look the part'' at the onset of her career in the fitness industry, but didn't benefit from that mindset and preferred to search for other sources of contentment while exercising.

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Time for me to get real with you guys. My body fat percentage is currently the highest that it's been since I started Fit and Thick. Funny thing is, so is my happiness and self-acceptance. When I was on my quest to "look the part" of entering the fitness industry, I ended up losing what fitness was for me in the first place. It never used to be about looking a certain way, but about the mental clarity and emotional release that I was able to achieve after an hour of pushing my body past what I thought I was capable of. 💭It was how I was able to find body acceptance in the first place. - By placing so much emphasis on my aesthetic goals, I lost touch with the fulfillment that I once experienced through my relationship with fitness. It's an important lesson to grasp and I hope that by being open with my revelation, I can light the way for you to connect these same dots within yourself. - The way I look will never make me truly love myself. I need to reach deeper than the shell and work on the empty parts. - So I recently set fitness goals with my class that have nothing to do with our appearance. Goals like: • 30 consecutive push-ups • 3 miles without stopping • Following through on working out 5x/week for a month straight Attainable goals that will require us to motivate ourselves in new ways. Goals we won't need a mirror for. - You are more than the way you look. Is it important to take care of your temple? Yes, but why is that getting the majority of our attention? Why do we place so much emphasis on the way we look instead of focusing that energy on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth? - Seems ironic coming from someone who gained 1.4 million followers on Instagram because I put my body on the internet. I think it's exactly why I feel so strongly about reaching higher and bringing anyone along with me who's open to it. Not just on the outside but on the inside too. Not always individually, but as a community too.💫 - I made a promise that I would be vulnerable with you guys, and when it comes to me and my body image, this as real as it gets. I am flawed. I am loved. But I am so much more. - And so are you. 🌸 #selflove #fitandthick

A post shared by Nicole Mejia (@nicole_mejia) on Apr 13, 2017 at 10:48am PDT

"It never used to be about looking a certain way, but about the mental clarity and emotional release that I was able to achieve after an hour of pushing my body past what I thought I was capable of," she added.

"It was how I was able to find body acceptance in the first place. By placing so much emphasis on my aesthetic goals, I lost touch with the fulfilment that I once experienced through my relationship with fitness."

After re-focusing on her well-being rather than her appearance, the trainer has set new goals for herself and urged her followers to pursue similar objectives, such as being able to do 30 push-ups in a row, run three miles without stopping, or work out five times a week for a month.

These, she said, are "attainable goals that will require us to motivate ourselves in new ways. Goals we won't need a mirror for."