It's My Body and I'll Get Slim If I Want To!

Our bodies have such an impact on our thought process about ourselves. Actually, being the only visible aspect of who we are, it has the most impact on what we think about ourselves and, of course, is the first thing people see about us.  And who among us didn't or doesn't have a thought "I wonder what he/she thinks about how I look?"

Last night I was on a phone call with someone I haven't seen in a while.  I was talking to him about how I've lost weight and about me going to the gym three times a week. He then asked me if I was trying to change my body.  I inferred from his tone and the following conversation that his impression was that I was loosing weight to make myself more attractive to and appreciated by others if my body type was different.  He suggested that three days a week was a lot of time to spend in the gym.  And in the end, it seemed as if I was being told that I should just settle with the body type I am currently in and not aim for something different.

In some ways I agree.  No matter what, there does come a necessity for us to learn to love and appreciate ourselves where we are in our process. If we have some extra pounds, we have to know that we are still beautiful and attractive individuals, inside and out.  We have to understand that God didn't create us all to be the same height, weight, color, religious affiliation or even sexual orientation.  And it is this mix of endless differences that makes the world so colorful, vibrant, interesting and exciting.  We get to interact with all the differences and decide for ourselves how we want to live our lives and each person will choose something a little different to everyone else.  And weight is a part of the mix of interesting things we get to live and experience.  So yes, we must appreciate the body that we are in now whether we want to lose weight or gain weight or not change at all.

Yet even in our learning to appreciate ourselves, we still have to interact with others in a world where we are taught to take heed of what other people think of us.  And even those of us who decide not to "give a fcuk," can't totally negate the impact that another person's thought's have on us.  And since the first thing people notice about us is our body, it goes without saying that apart of our desire to change our body shape comes from how we are accepted/rejected by those around us. And those of us who experience live in larger physiques are more profoundly affected by the thoughts of society at large about our size.  And while we may come to love ourselves and our physiques, we still are affected by the way people look at us or the way we THINK people look at us.

My answer to him was this: I've experienced life as a fat boy.  I've learned a lot from it and with all my struggles with weight, I wouldn't change a bit of that time.  Many of the lessons I've learned about life came from dealing with my weight journey.  Now I want to experience life with a smaller body, one with definition and added strength.  One that makes a larger part of the population stop and take a second or third appreciative look.  I want to feel better about how I think the world looks at me.

And there is nothing wrong with that being my motivation. Yes, I want to have a picture of my body reblogged endlessly on Tumblr.  Yes I want people in the club or at the beach to see my body before they get to know my heart and mind.  Of course I have been through enough to understand what criteria I use to pick the people I want to date, but there is nothing wrong with enjoying the appreciation that comes from others about how you look.

Now at the end of the day, none of us should be looking at the appreciation of others as the building block for our appreciation of ourselves.  Self-love and self-respect remain of primary importance.  We have to know our own worth, talents and abilities and appreciate ourselves despite our mistakes or perceived short-comings. We each have to be able to look in the mirror and love what we see reflected back to us.  We have to know that we were created 'good enough' and no situation or circumstance can take away our status before God as 'good enough.' We don't have to be thinner, thicker, taller, shorter, have a big house, forsake all worldly possessions in order for the Divine to accept us, love us and continually give us the desires of our heart.  We just have to recognize our innate worthiness and walk in pride no matter what our outer circumstances look like.  And when we have that knowledge imbedded deep within, every appreciative glance, every flirt, every pound loss by someone larger or pound gained by someone smaller, every piece of clothing that fits exactly like we want it to fit is that much sweeter as we experience it. 

There are a myriad of things to sift through in life.  Each and every situation and interaction, good or bad, inspires in us a desire for an experience that we believe will make us happier. And as we experience the things that make us happier, our belief in our worthiness is strengthened as we are faced with the next set of experiences to sift through to determine what we want next in life.

If you are struggling with weight,

1. know that the new body you want to be in is the same body that God wants to see you in - Why? Because God loves you enough to give you the desires of your heart. 
2. know that the body you have isn't what's holding you back, it's your thoughts about yourself and ultimately your body that's holding you back.  Appreciate yourself daily- you talents and gifts as well as the parts of your body you do love. Celebrate yourself and your successes
3. have fun with it. Remember your desire here is to be happier and more fulfilled, the change in body type is just a reflection of that. Do things that are fun and active. Join others doing similar things.  You will make new friends and strengthen friendships you already have and as your focus is on the fun more than the weight, the weight will fall off naturally.
4. appreciate those who appreciate you. As I've become more comfortable in my own skin I can now see the people around me who love me for who I am.  I don't have to change for them, but with me they celebrate my success and encourage me to follow the direction of my bliss/happiness.

These are just a few things I've picked up on my journey.  And I am going to continue to move in the direction of a smaller body type (though I'm always gonna be thick in the right places *wink*) And I'm going to love getting more and more cat calls, whistles, and dates as I move closer to my goal.

Develop High Energy Habits

A friend and I had a conversation about how much time we waste doing things that are not moving us in the direction of our goals. I, for one, am a Facebook Addict. There I said it. I will log-in in the morning and stay connected all day long. I refresh the page to see if any of my friends have said something I just have to read and know and I play the games and send virtual gifts to my friends all day long. Now while I do get work done, I tend to piddle away any down time I have on Facebook. Then later in the day I feel bad because I didn’t accomplish anything with my day. At night and on the weekends it’s television (while being logged into Facebook). I will spend hours watching TV, even when there is nothing on I want to see. I spend relatively little time focused on the things that will help me create the life I desire to have.

Not to say that there is anything wrong with Facebook or watching TV or whatever it is that keeps us from following our path consistently, we all need to take downtime and just relax and enjoy ourselves. But when our lives become overrun with these things and we feel discontented with the progress we are making in our lives and careers, we need to pause and take notice.
These are low energy habits. These things keep us from the high energy, productive and creative lives we long to live. If you follow the lives of highly successful people, most of their time is spent in the pursuit of their goals and less on time and energy draining distractions. These people have not only keyed in on what they want to accomplish in their lives, they are taking the inspired steps to make those things a reality. And that is the main difference between them and the rest of us.

The difference between high energy and low energy activities is how you feel afterwards. When you complete a high energy activity, while you may be tired physically depending on the level of exertion, you feel the joy of having accomplished something. You feel renewed and more alive. The knowledge that you have made another step towards your goals makes you more enthusiastic and you become a beacon of light to those around you. Low energy activities keep you feeling dissatisfied with your life, you become more lethargic and experience boredom. You can become increasingly depressed because your life seems to be at a standstill, you aren’t accomplishing anything worthwhile or making an impact on the community around you.
And what we all long for inside it to make an impact and an imprint on the minds and hearts of those around us. But as we spend countless hours each week engaged in activities that only serve to temporarily entertain us, we miss out on opportunities to burst through the self-imposed ceiling of success we think restrains us.

But I think I have to ask myself: What do I get out of pursuing low energy activities?

We don’t do anything that we don’t get something out of. Even if what we get is a “confirmation” of our own lack of self-worth, self-esteem or sense of deserving. Perhaps we are afraid that our success will put us out of touch with our friends or family. Maybe we believe that there is a limit to how much we can achieve and these activities hold us below that limit. Maybe our preconceived notions about successful people are negative and by not being as successful we think we are somehow better than them. Whatever the underlying motivation, there is something that has us delaying our success instead of tackling it full force. And most of these underlying beliefs are necessary or true to our lives at this point. When we ask this question, we empower ourselves to choose more productive, high energy activities that make us feel so much better about ourselves.

That’s how I came up with this blog. I made a decision that I was going to log off of Facebook and read some articles in Psychology Today Magazine. I finished reading an article and felt so much better about the way I had spent those 15 minutes. While I thought about how good that felt, I knew I needed to write about that good feeling. These words are a product of that introspection. And you know what, I feel even better having written this and can’t wait to see how I will be inspired to spend my time this afternoon.

So I encourage you to log off that website, put down that controller, turn off that TV and start by doing one thing that moves you towards your goal. Like the Lays potato chip slogan, I bet you can’t do just one.

Some tips for engaging more consistently in high energy activities:

1. Have a specific goal (or set of goals) in mind. Know what it is you want to accomplish. Think of what it will look like when the goal is accomplished. To get someplace, you have to know where you are going.
2. Write down your goals and have copies in places where you can look at them frequently. These will be reminders to you of what you want to accomplish. This will help you keep focused.
3. Notice when you are engaged in a low energy activity and choose to get back to achieving your goals. Many of us habitually engage in low energy activities and we start doing them by default, as if on autopilot. SNAP OUT OF IT. Post your goal reminders near the things that have become used for low energy activities; on the computer, TV, game system or refrigerator.
4. Get an accountability buddy. Have someone in your life (a friend, a life coach, a counselor) who will remind you of those things you want to accomplish and hold you to them.
5. Join/create a Mastermind group. You will not only inspire each other with your passion for what you want to accomplish, you will also have accountability buddies and another source of inspired ideas that could help get you moving in the right direction.
6. When you get an inspired idea, start working on it. When we start looking at what we want to accomplish we can ask ourselves “What is something I can do right now to move me in the direction of my goal?” When the ideas come, we have to get cracking.
   

The more you engage in high energy activities, the more this will become habitual in your life. Then you won’t be able to help achieving your dreams and desires and you will create a sense of success and prosperity in your life that will draw the physical manifestations of those feelings into your experience.