Taking Care of Your Beautiful Body

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I was probably in the best physical shape of my life my sophomore year of high school. At the time, my school offered a class called Advanced Aquatics as one of our physical ed electives, and since “Court Sports” wasn’t really my thing, I found myself in the pool everyday. Fun fact: everyone else in the class was on the swim team. I was not.

Despite the daily humiliation of my clawed hands and the fact that I’m incapable of performing a butterfly stroke, it’s the first time I remember actually enjoying exercise and feeling really strong in my body. Not just physically strong, but mentally strong - like I could accomplish things.

That strength - physical and mental - is what I want the next five points to help you find. You deserve to feel powerful. You deserve to feel strong. And for goodness sake, you deserve to feel beautiful! So use these five steps to help you find that, if you aren’t there already.

Exercise

It took a long time to find my exercise jam. I now identify as a runner, but at other points in my life I was SUPER into kickboxing, step aerobics, water aerobics, zumba and cardio drumming. Find what works best for you. I tried circuit training once and was like, “This is NOT my scene.”

Find an exercise plan that is fun for you, that you enjoy doing, and create a schedule you can keep up with. I have to work out in the morning or it simply does not happen. Find an accountability partner if you need one. I sign up for races because I am highly motivated by not wasting money so I keep up with my training! Find what makes you feel good, because you are more likely to follow through.

Honestly one of the greatest helps to me was my Apple Watch. I am HIGHLY motivated by earning the badges for workouts and closing my rings (standing, workout and movement) each day. It has absolutely helped me to prioritize taking care of my body.

Your body is a temple, and you only get one. Take care of it.

2. Support your Mental Health

So much of having a body-positive self image has to do with your mind. Our thoughts and our feelings are like twins, so when our thoughts about our bodies are negative, so too will our feelings be. Here are some things I have done to help me feel good about my body.

Positive Affirmations. Buy some positive affirmation cards and pick one each day to put in a spot where you will see it often - on the mirror, on your dashboard, etc. Each time you see it, read it, take a breath, and go about your day.
Yoga. I do yoga 2-3 times a week. It’s wonderful to take some time to slow down, breathe, and stretch. You can also pick an affirmation card from above and use it as centering message throughout your yoga.
Take a bath. I don’t do this one very often because I struggle with the water usage. But sometimes you just need to sit in some hot water with bath salts and candles and bubbles and chill the F out. I get out of the bath feeling super zen and can go on with my life.
Meditation. I’ll be honest, I’m just starting to get into this one and I’m up to a whopping 5 minutes a day, but I’m already starting to feel the results. Take those affirmation cards and use them as a mantra while you sit on your meditation pillow (I have this one and the buckwheat filler is the way to GO!). Breathe in the positive message. Breathe out the positive message.
Your body is amazing, beautiful, strong and capable.

3. All Things In Moderation: FOOD

I was a vegetarian for 15 years and now follow more of an AIP diet (read about that here). In general, we all need to be eating less garbage. I’m a Spanish teacher, and one of my favorite words I learned recently was for “junk food.” Directly translated in Spanish it is “garbage food.” Because that is really where those Cheetos (or whatever your snack of choice is) should be…in the garbage.

That said, I’m also not going to sit here and shame anyone for emotionally eating. I cannot count the number of Arby’s Jamocha shakes I have purchased on the way home after a particularly hard day of teaching. Also, I will pound that shake and hide the evidence in the trashcan in the garbage so…I’ve probably got my own shame work to do there.

All I’m saying is, listen to Michael Pollen. Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Vegetables.

And when you need an emotional food fix, maybe try and pick a healthier snack option like the ones I mention on this post about self love. Try to avoid the packaged, fake stuff and go for real food. Your body will thank you by feeling better.

4. Drink Water

Our bodies are anywhere from 45%-65% water. Think about that for a minute. You’re essentially a walking water balloon. When you aren’t drinking enough water, your body knows. I get headaches and dizzy, and my brain feels foggy. One of my children throws up and gets feverish when she’s dehydrated. We feel lethargic and tired and unmotivated.

To think, all of these issues can be solved by drinking some water! Do it! This is an easy fix! And try to do it from an eco-friendly water bottle while you’re at it. Plastic isn’t cool anymore. :)

5. Sleep

I’m not going to tell you how many hours to sleep here. What I’ve found over time is that the magic number is different for everyone. Mine is 9. When I get 9 hours of sleep I feel SUPER AMAZING. That happens…NEVER. Not since I’ve had kids and a full time job. But there was a glorious time in my life when I knew if I slept 9 hours I was going to wake up feeling rested, energized, and ready to attack the day! My average now is about 7 hours, and I am fully committed to those 7 hours (read below for some suggestions for how to do that).

On the opposite end, a dear friend of mine can kill it on 5 hours of sleep. He wakes up ready to go and has the patience to make it through.

Moral of the story - find your magic number, and do your best to get as close to that amount of sleep as you can. And while you’re at it, find things to help you really commit to it!

We have a tempurpedic mattress. It’s the best sleep of my life. I miss my mattress when we travel.
I sleep with a white noise machine. It helps to minimize the number of times I wake up in the night to random sounds like the dog rolling over downstairs.
I’ve set my phone to a sleep schedule. I get a reminder when it’s time to go to bed and an alarm in the morning when it’s time to wake up. While I don’t always follow it, I have found it helpful to keep me close to on track.