Your Bod Is Your Baby

Article by Brian Clement PhD, LN

Humans have a peculiar tendency to treat themselves worse than they treat those around them. What will it take for you to take care of you?

When you look in the mirror, are you comfortable with what you see? Are love handles protruding from your sides? Does it look like you have a sack of potatoes in your rear? Does your belly resemble St. Nick’s?

If so, your mind will be going in one of two directions: sad or challenged. When uncomfortable in your own skin, there is a gnawing perpetual presence of discord that prevents the state of joy that you should be in. In my youth, I carried a bombastic burden of excessive weight. As a man, I was able to justify it as being “big and bold.” However, my broken heart knew it was an unacceptable disorder.

Women I knew who weighed half of what I did were called an assorted list of names nobody would like to own. Culturally, our societies portrayed young, thin, and sexy bodies as the epitome of desire. With more than half of us overweight, there is a groundswell of sadness that pervades humanity. What will it take for you to revisit that mirror and create the Bod that would make you happy? “Lots of work” is the answer. Are you up for it, or will you be sitting on the sidelines making excuses as the game of life is played out before you?

Unfortunately, weight-loss programs and fitness industry advocates believe diets and exercise fix the problem. Millions of times throughout history, this hypothesis has been disproved. What it takes to become strong, limber, lean and well is a change in attitude.

Your mind is your best buddy or your greatest saboteur. Before you change, you have to be thoroughly disgusted with your current state and willing to take the needed steps forward without hesitation.

Since 1956, we have been supporting people in the process of regaining their lives. Of course, your body is the vehicle you are captured within during the short time you spend on Earth. You do not want to have a roommate that you are constantly fighting.

How do you make friends with yourself since your normal routine is to beat yourself up? Do you deeply believe that you deserve to live in a happy state? Or do you remember as a child being surrounded by discord? Did you observe your mother, father, and siblings on the track of self-destruction and consider it normal? Have you recognized that you are addicted to “foods” and patterns of self-loathing?

To become clean, you have to be willing to humbly acknowledge the cracks in your façade. Once you have done so, you need to mix the cement to re-create the wholeness that you deserve. So far, we have discussed those who carry the burden of excess weight; how about people who feel weak, small in stature and lacking energy? Our minds are so central to either circumstance and require similar resolve. Anorexia and bulimia grip millions of people globally. These are the extremes of self-image disorders. When wanting to lose pounds or gain weight, the same process of resistance exercise is required.

As we want more elastic movement and exuberant energy, it requires aerobic activity. Calories are now a concern of the past. The implementation of body resculpting must focus on the energy of the food, how clean and unpolluting it is, as well as the nutritional magnificence it contains.

As nomads, we ate infrequently and always nutritionally. Our bodies, which are like our own babies, consistently moved and developed musculature, detoxification, anatomical strengthening and psychological and spiritual bal-ance. You would never think of abusing that infant, yet you are a world-class expert on doing that to yourself.

Compare the diet of half a century ago to the present. We consume double the food by weight. You do not have to be a scientist to recognize this; just look around you on the streets, at home and in our schools. Seventy-two percent of our children, and similarly in Western Europe, are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese. Teenage girls and boys commonly starve themselves to look like the hottest artists of the day.

“Fast Food Cyber Living” has displaced outdoor activities and family meals. For you to achieve your goal of residing in a user-friendly body, you have to make peace with the demons inside your mind, heart, and soul.

Internal conflict has to be replaced with positive affirmations. Perpetual computer and cellphone use has to be minimized so social and physical activity become the mainstay once again. Food has to be viewed as fuel and not a reward or crutch. You have to replace your old Bod with the new Bod you are willing to carve into creation.