Our weight is NOT our worth

If I asked you to describe your body, what would you say? Would you tell me how tall you are? Attempt to describe your build? Reveal your weight? Describe your figure as an hourglass, ruler, pear or apple?

Would you even think to tell me how it helps you get through the day? How it allows you to work and take care of your family and loved ones? Drive a car? Would you tell me how many steps it walks in a day, how fast or how far it can run?

Would you tell me how its strength allows you to carry physical and emotional burdens, how its flexibility allows you to sometimes push yourself to new limits? Or how its fighting an illness? Would you tell me just about how it looks or would you tell me what it can do?

Most of us judge our bodies by what they look like, how big it is or how ugly and pitiful it is or how we fit in jeans and what happens to our bellies when we sit down. I know I do. We weigh our worth on a scale and measure our happiness in belly rolls. But what if we could change our perspective? What would it mean to live a life in which we can step off the scale not in a protest of pounds but rather because we have come to appreciate that the scale fails to weigh anything of real worth – that all things worth measuring are measured in smiles, accomplishments, love, friends, health and happiness.

I want a body than can support me and everything I want to do. Because I want to build my body up so that it can support me in reaching goals, be around to love my family and friends, to be of service to others, to help build God's kingdom, to quite literally help support me in everything I do, not because I want to whittle it down to nothingness. I will not aim to diminish myself – to be thin, slender or small, all words that imply frailty and weakness. I do not want to be frail or weak. I want to be strong. I want to be. I want to do. And I want a body that can support that.

So instead of weighing my body’s worth (literally) and measuring my body’s value in pounds, I am going to start to measure my body in accomplishments. I am going to applaud my body for what it is capable of. I am going to be thankful for my body and for all that it allows me to do.

Its time for a change!

NOTE: This article was a result of an assignment given me earlier this year. It was prior to my signing up on MFP. I am of course stepping on a scale from time to time because I AM interested in the amount of pounds I am losing. However, I am MORE interested in being healthy, happy and being thankful for a body that allows me to be me, to live, to experience and enjoy all that life has to offer. I need to cherish more the NSVs and look at weight loss as a benefit of my efforts in ‘changing.’

Thank you for letting me share.