"Our bodies are not our enemies, and we are not fighting a battle. Instead, we are investing our love and attention into the care and support of a beautiful creation—our selves." That was some wisdom this morning from Madisyn Taylor on the Daily Om.
I spent a lot of my life not really living in my body. I clothed it, fed it and tended it after a fashion, but I don't think anyone was really home, and to a great extent I pretty much ignored my physical self for much of my adult life. This was, at least in part, how a chubby little girl became a seriously overweight woman who, until well into midlife had never seriously made an attempt at weight loss, or honestly even given it much thought.
It's also why when I finally did start "the decade of the diet" I think things went a little off the rails, and I was willing to do some pretty wonky things in the name of weight loss, that "battle" with myself, including being willing to "just not eat" if that was what it took. That is easier with a little help from chemistry to suppress your appetite, so I added that to my arsenal in the war against myself.
And I have won some of the skirmishes. From a high weight of near 300# I have been all the way down to 150, once, briefly. But it was not sustainable, and I bounced up again (though not all the way), and back down to a "happy place" in between-that I maintained for a while-this time through lots and lots and lots of exercise. And then I ran out of time for that, and up.....again to a weight that is more than I want to be and where I had been stuck and feeling really like I was in a constant war with myself, again willing to do whatever it took to "rid" myself of that weight-including restricting calories at a ridiculous level-and proud of it.
So these, my nutritionist tells me, are the things that must be healed. These are the reasons that all the good things I see happening with my new way of eating have not included significant weight loss as yet. my body is a calorie hoarder, afraid to let them go as she doesn't trust that I will keep feeding her, nourishing her. She is making good use of what I am providing these days, building healthier skin and nails and, I'm sure cells that I cannot see. So I am trying to trust that this other healing will take me where I want to go in other ways as well. That we will eventually be friends and allies in the process, my body and I. That my body will believe that the nurturing calories will keep coming and she can release the stores as they will no longer be needed.
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