“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. “Buddha
I’ve seen this slogan floating about a lot in the last few months and I think it’s a definite sign that us humans are finally making a bit of positive mental progress.
In modern times folks put a heck of a lot of focus on being skinny and losing weight, which don’t get me wrong, it’s good not to be overweight, being overweight (depending on size) can be very damaging to your body and internal organs so focusing on being sensible with your size is great but it can go the other way.
People may say that I’m hypocritical because I’m relatively slim (a UK size 10) but skinny is not where I put my focus, healthy is. Speaking to my mum (who’s had issues about her size for about 15 years and in speaking to other people), it seems a lot of people are obsessed with skinniness, as if that’s what makes you happy; as if they reach that goal of being tiny, their live’s will be complete. That’s not how things work. It’s quite depressing that people put such esteem on the size aspect and not on being healthy and strong.
As soon as you put your effort into being healthy (eating right, doing various exercises, being outdoors, being happy) and strong (keeping your body strong with strength related exercises to cope with the crazy things that life throws at it) then you end up in a much healthier mental place, it becomes so much less about the weight (which should fall off if you do those things anyway) but more about making sure that you take of yourself, which will start to build up your self respect and self care and those are what make the difference, you will start to do things because you know they’re good for you not because they’re good for losing weight.
In fact some people don’t lose any weight when they start doing exercising and eating right, especially if they’re doing strength exercises with weights because they lose fat but they actually gain muscle which is heavier, so progress shouldn’t be based on your weight anyway but how you look and feel. Somebody could be the same weight as they were before incorporating healthy food and fitness into their life but their body will actually be a totally different shape with more tone and muscle definition. And in case you want even more motivation for this, muscles burn more calories than fat! Granted you don’t have to look like a body builder, just build up enough for general good body tone.
Happy, healthy Thursday
Love
Jen
