You Are Not Your Body.
As the Human Upgrade Sisterhood prepare for their 12-week fitness plan (and The Inner Circle have fitness goodies a’comin too – if you haven’t joined, this would be a very good time)
I thought I would blatantly repost this morning’s photo.
A message came through just before, which said ‘I need picture of lady-biceps for a thing’.
That’s a larff, we thought – and SNAP it was done, comedy caption added.
In fact 3 snaps.
One was quite good, the second OK and the third one seemed to be an artistic study of ‘The Double Chin. In Summer’.
I haven’t got particularly big biceps, but with the right angle and tensing up…
The first one, obviously, was sent.
I’m not a fan of the selfie, for its own sake – feels a bit vain to me (Catholic tendencies coming through there) but mainly, because there are so few pictures I take at all – fewer still in the ‘OK to post’ category –
that I rarely bother.
Having said that, there’s two in one day, so that last bit is twaddle.
(Twaddle. Good word. Must use it more)
Anyway…
Claire, on the other hand, looks great in all photos.
She will totally deny that and say it’s the other way round.
But that is how it is.
We are very harsh, about the way we look and our bodies.
Literally our own worst critic – even if we feel we are not too bothered by that kind of thing.
The fact is, we judge our ‘just got up. double chin’ faces by the standards of everyone else’s ‘OK to post’ faces.
Don’t get me started on filters.
The same with bodies.
Even the bikini models we are bombarded with … don’t actually really look like that.
If they posted their ‘just got up, double chin’ photos – you’d see things for how they are.
We are not our bodies.
We have bodies.
And our faces are largely down to the gene pool lottery unless we want to spend hours each day covering them with slap and contouring them to look like other people’s.
When you take the ‘personal’ out of it – what we are left with is a transportation vehicle for getting through life.
The important measurables in that are health and happiness.
The rest is garnish.
It’s utterly possible to go on a diet, starve yourself skinny, lose so much weight so quickly that you feel awful (and can actually suffer serious illness).
Waking up thinking about food, denial, what you can and can’t have and go to bed hungry.
Falling off the wagon.
Blaming yourself.
Starting again
If that’s what you want.
I don’t want that for you.
Neither health or happiness is achieved that way – but you might take a great photo for Instagram.
If that’s what you want.
Depends on your priorities, I suppose.
Those are worth examining.
Once you focus on health and happiness and seeing your body as the only bit of ‘kit’ you have, that will allow you to do the things that you want –
the game changes.
The thing is… you can spend the money, do the ‘plans’, buy the shakes, pop the pills.
Hand the responsibility and money over to someone else.
Those people will always take your money.
They rely on you feeling desperate to fill their bank balance.
I’m not going to tell you NOT to – I’m going to ask you, deep down… do you really think that’s the issue?
This advice is free.
I think you know exactly what it is you need to do.
Judging a person’s worth, loveability, character by their body or their looks… it’s as illogical as is pointless.
That goes for your own.
You are not your body.
But you do have to maintain it and make sure it keeps going.
If you know that you eat too many snacks – don’t do that.
Drink too much booze – it’ll make you feel bad – don’t do that.
Smoke? Definitely don’t do that.
If you don’t do enough exercise – do more of that.
If your meals are full of processed food – change them for healthier ones.
If you’re cross with me and think it’s not as simple as that.
I hear you.
I didn’t say it was easy but fundamentally, sorry, it really is as simple as that.
Each decision you make, and action you take shows what your priority is – in that moment.
Is it health and happiness… or isn’t it?
Is it something else.
And if it isn’t – then that’s OK too – it’s your body and only you can decide what you want for it.
It can be literally however you want it to be.
(Except for limb length. That’s pretty much set.)
Discipline. commitment and patience aren’t sexy words and no one wants to hear them – but they’re the only kind of ‘bikini-body’ or any other kind of ‘body’ plan you need.
Your body is essentially the product of how much you’ve maintained it.
Yours alone.
Unlike the several cars I’ve variably trashed… your body can come back from quite a lot of abuse.
You don’t want to go the way my poor old Passat did once.
(funny story for another time, but a policeman friend of mine thought it had been stolen and dumped – then found out just in time, it was my actual current car so he didn’t get it towed off and compacted.
It lasted another couple of months, from memory and Claire had to take it into the scrapyard man – I was too embarrassed)
You don’t need big biceps or a six-pack, but if you want them you can have them.
You do need a healthy heart, efficient lungs, strong bones, and to be able to enjoy delicious healthy food without having to consult some complicated rule book or app.
You can add fancy twiddles (not twaddle) to that if you want to put in the hours.
Knowledge is power.
You already know what to do.
You just need to decide what you want.
If you haven’t already, we would love you to join us in The Wise & Gorgeous Inner Circle
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