A Week of Gratitude, Day Two - Making Friends with my Body

Monday, December 3, 2012
I need to lose about 20 pounds.

This is not news - I have spent the last decade needing to lose 20 (or more) pounds, and vacillating between various weight loss strategies in an effort to mold my body into something I could live with comfortably. But a funny thing happened in the last year - I made friends with my body.


I ran my first 5K this year, benefiting the Wounded Warrior Project.


I can do 100 lunges and still get out of bed the next morning.

I can run 6 miles without stopping.

I can lift weights several times each week, increasing the weight slowly and steadily as my muscles increase in strength.

I exercise nearly every day, making time for this activity in a somewhat insane schedule, and it benefits no one but me.

My body is strong. My body is fit. My body works. And because of these facts, I find that I actually LIKE my body, extra 20 pounds and all.

That doesn't mean I should give up the struggle to drop the last of my excess weight and maintain better eating habits. Because, really - I love to eat crappy, high-calorie foods, often with little nutritional value. I still have work to do in terms of my love-hate relationship with food.

But it does mean that I no longer consider my body to be a burden rather than a blessing. It has carried the essential me over the last 47 years, born two children, provided pleasure (and some pain), and done a pretty stellar job of holding off disease in spite of my lackadaisical efforts in helping it do so.

Today I'm grateful for my strong, fit body, and the work I do to maintain it.

5 comments:

The Mechanicky Gal said...

Funyuns and Entenmanns, FTW!
I am so very glad to see you exercising, even if my toenail is in imminent danger of falling off (Death March 2012!).
You inspire me to keep at it.

Random Michelle K said...

YAY!

This may sound dumb, but I'm proud of you for that.

As women, we are taught to be ashamed of our bodies. Ashamed of our bodily processes, ashamed of our sexuality, but most of all ashamed of not looking like an air-brushed, idealized, unachievable image.

It's good to love our bodies as they are.

Anne C. said...

Wise Michelle is wise.

Having a body that works and feels strong is my main reason for exercising (in the past), and I really need to figure out how to get back to that.

mom in northern said...

We tend to take it for granted...until it doesn't work...

Janiece said...

MG, I've been exercising for the last 10 years. But I've only recently learned to enjoy it, or least tolerate it a bit better. :-)