Loving The Body You Have: Three Simple Steps

Loving the Body You Have:Three Simple Secrets

1. Put Moving Your Body as Your Top Priority
2. Eat Like a French Woman
3. Learn What Not to Wear

Some people, such as my son, have an athletic soul. He works out and plays sports as an essential part of his daily regimen. He knows the “runner’s high” effect from exercising so hard and producing so many mood-enhancing endorphins.

While I am coordinated and I love to dance, I can sit for days, weeks even. My body does not cry out to move as some people’s do.

I love walking with friends, but I have a hard time getting my butt off the couch and out the door by myself. I hate working out in gyms. I’ve tried aerobics classes, step classes, yoga classes, and Jazzercise. I cannot get myself to go.

Until recently.

When I asked myself the question “What do I know would greatly benefit me?” the answer was simple and clear: yoga . My body loves yoga . But not all yoga classes.

Classes which tend toward the “yoga Olympics” as I call it, where there is a subtle or not-so-subtle judgment that we, I , should be able to be more limber, more flexible, more anything – these classes discourage and anger me.

Classes that are an hour and a half are just too long for me right now. I get antsy. I get antsy, me, the person I really am, gets antsy. The person I think I should be does NOT get antsy. She loves an hour an a half. But this mythical person also has not trouble getting out for a weak by herself.

There is a gentle yoga class that is a fifteen minute walk from my house. (I am legally blind and cannot drive.) Anything I can do independently, as in I do not need to find a ride, has great appeal.

I loved this class, love the teacher, and yet I could not get myself to go regularly. Weeks and weeks would go by and I would sit and feel fat and stiffening.

But when I let myself know how much good I knew yoga would do for me, I got a brilliant (simple) idea. What if I put my body first? What if I decided everything else I do comes AFTER I get the exercise I need.

This simple decision changed everything. Now I go faithfully to yoga three times a week, rain or shine. I walk there and back which is good of many reasons. I have a tendency for depression and nothing is better than getting outside, outside where Life is and whet weather and the trees and the flowers and the birds an. Outside my dark thoughts can fly away as I get grounded in the reality of Here and Now.

I love every minute of my yoga class. My body loves it. I am getting toned. My skin feels better. * like the feel of my body as it shapes up. I am recovering a body that has been buried in extra pounds and sedentary behavior .

And it is fun, fun, fun, and easy easy, easy.

2. Eath Like a French Woman

About the same time I made the decision to Put My body First, a book came in the mail from the Library for the blind. I did not order this book, French Woman don’t Get Fat: the Secret of Eating for Pleasure by xxx

A little background eating history: I was too skinny growing up. I could not gain weight. Then I was fine, then I started taking hormones and put on thirty pounds. Then I did not know myself anymore.

I have never dieting . All the research on dieting is bad. It is unhealthy and can lead to morbid obesity . Deprivation and self-hate are lousy motivators. If I even start to think deprivation, I want to eat a bag of potato chips.

French woman do not diet . They do not go hungry. They eat all they want of whatever they want and they do not get fat. How do they do this? Here are some of the secrets. Don’t let yourself get hungry. Pay attention to what you eat. Chew slowly and savor what you eat. Pay attention to proportions. Eat more fruits and be tables. Take an inventory of what you are eating, find the worst offenders, and gradually reduce them as you replaces the foods that are causing problems, such as too many pastries, with food your body truly enjoys.

I love chocolate and I eat all I want. But I only want one small dark Dove chocolates a day. Maybe two. I can have all I want, but I pay attention to what I want and stop when I am done.

Sounds simple and it is. Simple wonderful. In tow months I have lost nine ponds without suffering. Even if I weren’t losing weight, I would still eat this way. It is the Yoga of
Eating or Mindful Eating. I enjoy my food more and I’m losing width as my body slims down. Simply fabulous!

3. Learn What Not to Wear

This is the newest part of my regimen. I “stumbled” (coincidence is god’s way of remaining anonymous, they say) on the BBC America show What Not to Wear. Women volunteer for a brutally honest assessment of there dressing habits , learn what not to wear and what flatteres the body they have, and then go shoppng.

The results are stunning and poignant. These women are real women with real bodies. The point of the show is to love the body you have and know how to dress it so you feel alive, sexy, and confident. I ghhly recommend it. Xxx website?

My legs are thicker, my belly sags, , and I have been trying to hide it in long flowy clothes for eyars. But not anymore. I am likeling my curves and my new clevbage. I’m going to look for clothes with color that show off my shape instead of trying to hide it. I’ve seen women absolutely transformed, and I want ot be one of them

Your Challenge

1. How does your body like to move? Do you have anyone who could be a Success Buddy to help your find a way to move regualry? You might have to trick yourself, but as soon as you put moving your body as a top priority, you will find a way to lesolve the problem If you would liekk to contibute to a Here’s How I got Me to Move My body xxx, click here xxx

2. Read FrenchWomen Don’t’ Get Fat and do what she tells you to do. You will never be the same.

3. Watch What Not to Wa on BBC America. You owe it to yourself. Take one baby step toward finding a style that makes you feel gorgeous. Keep in touch, if you’d like, here xxx.

If you have questions, contact me. If you want a song to motivate you, take a listen to I’m gonna Love Me Just as I am here xxx.

Blessings,

Vicki