Search This Blog

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Show some LOVE, everyBODY

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


1 comment:

  1. Awesome articles ladies! I feel so fortunate to have tapped into the vibes of such positive people. I have noticed that since I have been participating in a number of fitness and healthy eating activities, I have mostly stopped thinking about the things I do not like about my body. I have also stopped comparing myself to other people. I just know that if I don't do these things, that I will not feel well, so I keep doing them. Thanks for all you do to encourage a healthy lifestyle! And I love the little snowmen!!

    ReplyDelete