Love Your Body- Melissa Schrotenboer
Loving Your Body,
Easier said than done. The Lord has blessed us with one body to take care of
and live in while we are here on earth. SO... why do we have such a hard time
LOVING it? Just this week while training with a client I caught my self-saying
"Oh I do this exercise, all the time b/c I hate my inner thighs"
Whoops there I go ... right of my mouth without even thinking.
I definitely DON'T
Love my body all the time, but I TRY…
I love that my body
can take me long runs in the heat of summer and the blizzards of winter. (like
this morning). A Few years ago I would have never guessed that 10 mile long
runs on Saturday morning would be one of the things I looked forward to the
most on the weekends.
I Love all the
Fitness'y stuff that my body allows me to do, Groove, Running, Biking, Skiing, Wakeboarding,
Etc...
I love my Freckles;
I think they are unique, and my Hair while some time’s CRAZY I do love the
curls.
So what do you LOVE about your body? Instead of focusing on the
Negative the things that you don't like or wish you could change
Since we have such
a Wonderful Valentine's Day Blizzard Going on Right now in MI I thought that
little snowman here were pretty cute and appropriate.
I asked a few other
Great Ladies to share what it means to them to Love their Body, Please Enjoy
their honest and motivational words.
Melissa
Love
Your Body - Sara Helder
Valentine's
Day is here and spring is right around the corner (well hopefully), which makes
us start to think about Spring Break and warmer weather. Warmer weather gets us
of thinking about warm weather clothing that is not involving giant sweaters.
Now, Valentine’s day celebrates love; loving our friends, family and
significant others, but what about ourselves. I found this little saying and I
thought it would be perfect to get my point across. Every person and body is
different, which makes us who we are, but many times we are not happy because
we don't look a certain way. This is very hard and I admit I feel the same way.
What helps me is to know why I exercise; I exercise
to release stress, hangout with friends, spend time with my sister and
just have fun. I exercise to feel healthy, but it's easy to mush this
into something that is unhealthy when we start to compare ourselves and start
unhealthy habits to get to what we think we need to look like. To love our body
is to love everything about ourselves and to just enjoy the things that make us
happy and feel good. We can use these days leading up to Valentines to figure or
what makes us feel good and then on Valentine's start fresh and love our
bodies.
- Sara
Athletic Training Student at GVSU
Love Your
Body- Heather Winia
WOW, this was harder to write than I thought. I am always
coaching and sharing about ways to LOVE your body because I have been
there. Hating my body, trying to get it to fit a mold, restricting it,
judging it, and simply talking horrible to it and about it. And guess
what? That never got me anywhere except deeper in the hole of self-hate
and body dissatisfaction. So after years of reading many self-help books
on positive body image, I decided to try some of the techniques….I hope you find
these helpful and will try some yourself! Truly LOVE WINS in all areas of
your life….body, mind and spirit!
1. Observe your thoughts about your body. First you
must be aware, then you can start to shift those thoughts to more positive
ones! Notice your most common two or three thoughts about your
body…write them down and then write them again changing some of the words so
they have a more positive vibe! For example: “I hate my belly”,
turn it around to be “My belly digests the wonderful food I eat” or “My belly
helped create my beautiful children” or if you need a good laugh that is
totally true, you could say “My belly keeps my breasts off of my
thighs”!!! Without your belly, that would be weird, right? Try it
and share some if you would please!!
2. Spend time getting quiet and reacquainted with your
body. For example, as I laid in bed at night and in the morning, I would
place my hands on my belly and just love on it! Massage it, say loving
things and simply know that my belly deserved to be loved, for it was the only
one I had!!! Touch is a miraculously healing gesture, try it for
yourself!
3. Look around you and start to appreciate all the
beautifully unique body shapes and sizes we have been gifted with.
Really? We all want to look the same? I don’t think so, so let’s
celebrate what we have! Start to notice what you love about other people
and the uniqueness of all our bodies. “I love her smile”, “ Hips feel
good when they wiggle”, I am beautiful just as I am” or “The more I love about
myself, the more I can love about others!” Look at someone right now and
send them a compliment either verbally or energetically as you think it!
Behavior change truly begins with our thoughts and our
beliefs. If only the actions are focused on, we will soon “fall off the
wagon” because we missed the underlying cause of our issue. What you
think about, you bring about! So think positive, loving thoughts and you
WILL start to bring them about in your life and of course in LOVING YOUR BODY!
Heather S. Winia, CHHC, ACE
THEGROOVE Master Trainer, Holistic Health
& Nutrition Educator
