The body is always changing, whether it is on the inside or outside, but it adapts to the lifestyle you live and always wants to keep you alive. Everyday your body fights off bacteria to keep you healthy, it breaks down food into energy so that all your organs get the glucose they need and so that your bones and muscles can function.
It is rather cool how if something happens to your body such as starvation, an extremely active lifestyle (i.e being an elite with hours of training each day), an extremely unhealthy diet or an illness... your body can adapt to all of those things even if they may not be healthy.
However, the body has its limits.... the body is not something that will always change and adapt to everything you do. The body can only adapt itself and energy expenditure for a certain amount of time before it begins to take energy from muscles and organs. The heart can only take so much strain from continuous purges or extreme amounts of exercise. The body can only function somewhat ok with an extremely unhealthy diet.... but at some point, it cant adapt anymore, it cant keep you alive because you have pushed it too far.
Think about yourself as a plant, you can take away it water and sunshine for a while and it will still grow/live somewhat, but eventually it will die as it doesnt get the resources it needs to keep living. Or think of yourself as an animal or pet..... even without food, care or a home it will still be alive, still functioning somewhat but eventually it will be too much, or too little food or water, or too cold or too warm to survive.
You might feel fine "now", but ask yourself how you might feel in 10 years time? Whether the lifestyle you have now can be maintained and your health where it should be? Sometimes you might not even notice the change or think about what is going on in your body, most people dont until it is too late.
So today, i want you to take some time to thank your body for actually keeping you alive. Forget appearance, just think about how amazing the body is.... and in the end what does it really matter if there are rolls on your stomach or cellulite on your legs? Is it worth putting your health at risk just to look a certain way?
Take care of your body and realise that if you keep pushing your body too far, eventually it might stop working alltogether. So take care of your body instead, stop self inflicting pain and maybe long lasting damage to it just to look like a person you saw on a picture. You are you and beautiful just the way you are, but the most beautiful thing with a person is health and happiness and you dont achieve that by self inflicting pain and constantly hating yourself.
Yes, it is much harder to recover from long periods of restriction and bingeing at 45!
ReplyDeleteThe hardest thing is to recover from exercise addiction. I've never really stopped to exercise during my recovery from anorexia. I still haven't my period. I'm not completely weight restored, but i don't think that i will ever be fully recovered if i don't overcome my addiction.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree the body is truly amazing - something which I have learnt to appreciate more now than I have ever done before.
ReplyDeleteWhen you stop and think about it its wonderful how it "knows" how to adapt and survive in certain situations and how it fights off illness by making you feel you have no option other than to rest.
And it gives out warning signs too that all is not right - if we made a point of listening to our bodies instead of going against it we would probably be a lot healthier/happier!