What is your perfect weight?
That ideal weight that you feel, look and perform your best?
Have a number in your head?
The other day, I was chatting with a girl about this very fact.
“I just want to lose about 10 pounds. If I could just do that, then I’d be happy with my body,” she said.
I then proceeded to ask her: “How did you come up with that number?”
“I weighed that at one time, and I look back in pictures and like how it looked,” she said.
I next asked her, “At the time, do you remember feeling happy then?”
She paused.
“Hmm…Well…I think at the time, I actually wasn’t 100-percent satisfied with my body. Hmmm…come to think of it, I actually remember feeling pretty weak and tired a lot of the time. I definitely didn’t have that much energy…” she said.
My oh my, what a difference perspective can make.
In our innate human nature, the grass is often greener ‘on the other side’—but is it really?
When, or at what point, will we be satisfied, at peace, with where we are at…today?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a BIG advocate of having goals! And sometimes, for the pure health of it, those goals maybe weight or body-composition related.
But by all means, for the majority of us, when will we stop picking our bodies apart, and instead, start honoring them for where they are, and cultivating habits that are health and life-giving—as opposed to purely aimed at chiseling, toning, contorting, shaping and construing the skin under our arms, between our thighs or on our hips?
The next time you find yourself picking your body apart, thinking, “If only I can lose 5 or 10 more pounds, then I will be happy,” try asking yourself these questions:
What does X-pounds mean to me?
What will happen when I am X-pounds?
What is my ideal body fat percentage and body composition, and is this a realistic place for me to be?
Like I said, having goals is NOT a bad thing, but there is something valuable to be said about also being able to accept yourself, right where you are—as opposed to focusing on your body as a statue to be chiseled and carved…there is something life-giving about valuing your body as a ‘temple’ to nourish, uphold and care for.
“You know what?” the girl said, “My life won’t be any different or better if I lost 10 pounds. I wish it did make everything different or better but it doesn’t. So I would like to improve on what I have.”
Get it girl.