I started a Body Image series a few months ago but only did one drawing for some reason. Easily distracted is my excuse. I am starting it up again today.
My Body Image
When I was young I had no fat on me. I didn’t work at it or think about it. Then I turned 30 and I saw my tummy popping up above the line between my hip bones when I laid down. Then I found my chest had a little layer of fat. Then I got some love handles. Then my abs disappeared.
Now I am working my way back towards that body I remember. Of course it’s 25+ years later so my goal is not to look or be exactly like that. But I have an updated vision of what I would like to look like. I can look in the mirror have a memory reference point of sorts. I know what I used to look like and I believe I can be close to that again. Who knows, maybe even better.
My Motives
I have many motives; some noble, some vain. I am doing it so the runners I coach will look at me and see a person who coaches by life example. I am doing it so I will look fit at my high school reunion this summer. So I will look fit when I am on stage giving speeches or being interviewed on TV. It helps my business to look fit. I am doing it to be an example to those I love; my wife, my daughters, my friends. I want them to have a real life example, someone who said they were going to do it and they did it. I want them to say, as one of my runners said yesterday, ‘I think to myself, if he can do it, I can do it.’ I want it so I am more productive and creative for the longest possible lifetime.
But those motives and reasons are all secondary. The #1 reason I am losing weight and getting more fit is because I want to look how I want to look. I am not under pressure from my wife or daughters or friends or career or doctor or anyone else. I just want it for myself. I want to look a certain way, a way I think looks good and is healthy. I am choosing to be deliberate about becoming that.
Beholding You
My question to you is, do you have YOUR vision (not someone else’s) for what you want your body to look like? If not, why not? Your mind didn’t get educated without you working at your education, did it? Your heart and morals didn’t develop without you practicing being a moral and compassionate person, right?
Your body is just as essential as those areas. Your body will be become it’s best when you are deliberate about helping it. It won’t do it on it’s own.
So, if the body you behold in the mirror is the body that meets your vision of beauty and health, then maintain it and cherish it. But if you look in the mirror and feel, not because of family or social cultural pressures but because of YOU feel it, that it’s not the body you want, then take action to help it become what you want it to be.
You can do it.
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Drawing, quote and commentary by Marty Coleman, who has lost 22 lbs and has 8 more to go.
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