My body as a temple...

I went on a journey these last 10+ years- it was physically, emotionally, and mentally painful sometimes. Often exhausting. Often depressing. Often really frustrating. I gained weight, lost weight, gained it again. I tried diets that messed with my mind. I did workouts that injured me and left me in a bad state. I went to doctors, suffered terrible anxiety, and became a survivor of that anxiety. I became ill and injured at the drop of a hat. My blood test numbers were scary. I tried to pretend like I didn't have a disorder, and that dieting and extreme food choices would work on me the way it "did on everyone else." Instead, I lost weight (slow as a snail) but to do it, I had to make extreme choices. And *nothing really changed.* 

I'm currently in a body that isn't exactly my ideal, visually. It's not the body that I'm SUPER excited to be in. But it's a body that is finally being respected for its cues. Its needs. It's a body that actually feels FAR less pain than it has for years. It's a body that keeps me healthy (tfutfutfu) instead of constantly battling this illness and that illness. It's a body that works out including high impact and strength training every week, multiple times a week like clockwork. It's a body whose numbers are healthy. It's a body that eats what it needs, and is starting to remember how to tell me when it's hungry and full after dieting and bad choices took those cues from me.

So my goals aren't weight loss anymore. And this isn't some statement about YOUR journey, or anyone else's. It's not even a statement on that goal in general. Because I'm not you. 

My goal is making sure my head is on straight, and my body has what it needs. My goal is making sure that I'm hearing what it tells me when it tells it to me. And do I hope that things even out and I end up in a smaller body? For many reasons, yes. But that's not the goal. It can't be because that goal hasn't served me. 

The fact is that my good habits are what serve me. Eating foods that are nourishing, joyful movement every day, getting enough good quality sleep, keeping up with preventive medical things, taking my supplements, keeping up with my mental health... those are the things that are far more imperative. Those are the choices that will elongate my life. Ignoring my body's cues certainly will not. I DO have this issue, and it's not an easy one to deal with. No one even knows much about it. Doctors disagree constantly on its cause and its treatment. So all I HAVE are these habits. 

So here's to hoping everyone can get to that point, however you get there. And whatever challenges you have, I hope you find ways to overcome them with the internal strength you surely have. 

Love, 

Ladysingin