Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Respecting your body

This is probably one of the biggest motivators for me to stay healthy.  Our bodies are amazing!  Seriously, amazing!  Do you know just how many functions are going on inside your body right this very second?  Hundreds, if not thousands.  Our bodies just know to fill our lungs with air.  Our heart just knows to pump blood over miles of veins.  Our brain just knows how to keep it all in sync.  I find it amazing that things don't go wrong more often.  Our bodies just know how to work, they know how to do their job, and they do it to keep us going.  Which is why we need to take care of it.

I believe our body is sacred, a gift that has been given to us for as long as we walk this earth, and we should take care of it as best we can.  It is the most amazing thing that we could ever hope to have.  So why settle for anything less then the best?  We live in a world that can easily cloud this vision.  There is temptations on all sides for everything in life.  Everything from gluttony to laziness, feasting to famine, luxurious, luscious food seems to abound and it's easy to want to eat it all all the time!  Everyone one else is, so why not us too? 

Have you ever eaten something and then immediately afterward asked yourself, "oh why did I just do that to myself?"  I have spent too many years doing this and I am so glad that I have now learned the difference.  This is our bodies way of telling us that that wasn't right for us.  It was too much of the wrong thing and we need to start learning to listen to that.  How many times will it take for you to want to make a healthy change?  How many times will you allow yourself to become incredibly uncomfortable after eating a meal?  I have now learned (and am very much still learning) which foods make me feel good and which foods I regret.  It's not hard to learn, you just have to pay attention. 

It's like anything that is great in this life, you have to pay attention to the details.  There is so much that we can miss if we just rush on in a hurried pace and don't take the time to enjoy the view.  Our bodies need constant nourishment of the good kind.  Healthy food will go such a long way and your body will thank you for it.  You WILL feel the difference.  It will be a lesson that you will be so happy that you have learned.