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Lisa Petty: Love your body… first!

By on July 15, 2013
heart belly

Forget about how your body looks, and focus instead on what your body does for you. 

By Lisa Petty R.O.H.P.

Have you ever set a health goal, perhaps to lose weight through healthy diet and regular exercise, and just know that when you cross the finish line you’ll absolutely love your body? So, you dangle that self-love out there for some future time and place, like a carrot (with dressing on the side).

And yet, between the moment you make your decision and that future time when you reach your ideal result, every choice you make about what you eat and how you spend your time marinates in misery. You feel deprived when you eat a vegetable, and resent every trip to the gym. Rather than inspiring you toward success, the steps you take toward your goal to be healthy lead to anger, frustration and often impatience. Not very motivating.

If you’ve used this strategy in the past and find yourself resolving to lose the same 20 pounds year after year, perhaps it’s time to try something new. Perhaps it’s time to start at the finish line. Perhaps it’s time to love your body…first.

 

Not some new-age mumbo jumbo

Research shows that stress and anger contribute to illness, including heart disease. On the other hand, multiple studies support the positive impact of emotions like love and gratitude on our health and mental well-being. Yet, more than the simple replacement of negative feelings with positive ones, emotions like love and gratitude play a significant role in our motivation to change. It makes sense: when you love something, you take care of it. Including yourself.

 

Getting grateful

In a culture that promotes negativity and tends to focus on unpleasantness in the world, it can be a challenge to know where to begin when it comes to loving our bodies – especially when we’ve come to believe the shape, size or age of it simply isn’t loveable. In order to gather some gratitude, forget about how your body looks, and focus instead on what your body does for you.

I truly love what my body gives me and allows me to do every single day – like hugging my kids and feeling sunlight on my skin. I love to hear the dawn chorus of birds that help me greet each day. I love salty, sweet and bitter tastes in my mouth, how ice cools me and how hot tea warms me up. I love when a light breeze moves my hair. I couldn’t enjoy these things without a body, and for these things and more, I love my body. That doesn’t mean I don’t continually aim to improve my health, but I believe the health choices I make are fair, loving exchange for goods and services received from my body!

When thoughts about even a few of your body parts bring you warm, loving feelings rather than resentment, it becomes much easier to make choices that support your whole body. You’ll exercise more. You’ll skip dessert more often. You’ll opt for salad over fries. Eventually, those choices add up. One day, you’ll look in the mirror and a healthier person will be looking back at you.

 

lisapettyheadshotLisa Petty, ROHP is North America’s Health Empowerment coach, nutritionist, internationally renowned radio show host, award-nominated journalist, and author who believes that healthy living is simple.  She shares her unique perspective in workshops, lectures, online coaching, on TV and radio and throughout her extensive writing. Visit Lisa at www.LiveVibrantly.ca, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

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