Respect Your Body First

We must first learn to love and appreciate our body before we look to someone else to find it beautiful. This awesome appreciation for for our body opens the door for others to find us desirable and worthy of respect. Like a fast-moving virus or a silly laugh, how you feel about your body is contagious. If you carry yourself and your body in a way that communicates confidence, security and contentment, others will get this vibe and reciprocate it. If you are blessed to become a mother or a mentor someday, you will have the opportunity to teach your daughter (or encourage another girl) to be confident in her own skin, even though some of our moms or mentors may not have been able to do that for us.

As a friend, you can model to your girlfriends how to love and find beauty in their own bodies by finding beauty in your own. If you walk and talk like the body beautiful daughter of God you are, you can liberate the women around you from the bondage of negative self-image. How can we expect our boyfriends, husbands, children and friends to cherish us if we don’t see ourselves as worthy? God has already called your body “good”. You are the crown of His creation and He wants you to walk in this truth and communicate it to the world around you. So walk tall and carry your body like the temple of God it is. If we are going to change the ways of this world, it has to start with us.

Let's do it!

*Excerpt from HEAL: Healthy Eating & Abundant Living by Allie Marie Smith & Judy Halliday (Coming December 2008)

Inner Beauty Exercise!

I think I was around the age of twelve when I started visualizing my ideal body. It resembled the tall, lean and rock hard physique of Gabrielle Reece (minus about four inches in height). I remember cutting her out of a magazine and coveting those tan legs, washboard abs and lean biceps as my own. Twelve years later (yes, I’m a very stubborn, slow learner!) I’ve realized that this hasn’t gotten me anywhere. As far as I know, my physique hasn’t yet been compared to Laird’s bride and the color of my skin can be more likened to a bar of ivory soap.

I recently came across one of her ads and admit that I felt pretty envious of her statuesque frame. And while I was tempted to run about five miles and do a plyo-metric workout in the sand in addition to the exercise I'd already done for the day, I felt God's gentle touch convincing me to do otherwise. So, I did something new! I closed my eyes and imagined myself more beautiful within than ever before. And as I did I couldn't really make out what I looked like, but I "saw" or "felt" a radiant glow that overpowered my external beauty. I felt alive, whole, and eager to love others. During this "inner beauty workout" as I called it I was so focused on filling others up because my heart was filled to the brim with God's love. "We love because He first loved us." My spirit of striving subsided and I was able to rest secure in God's presence.

So God has been teaching me, and slowly I've been listening. While I still have an affinity for fitness and sports (confession: I daydream about being on American Gladiators someday!) I'm realizing that envying other women's bodies for my own isn't going to get me anywhere. Rather, as I allow God through His Holy Spirit to refine me from within I am transformed into the person He desires me to be (in body, mind and spirit) for HIS GLORY, not my own!

Have you gotten your inner beauty exercise today?

Facebook Ads Driving You Up the Wall?

Okay, so I'm getting really fired up (not in a good way) about all the ads that flash in front of me everytime I'm on facebook. I'm so fired up that I almost created a whole facebook group called "Facebook: Take down Your Diet Ads!" or something with a little more pizazz. I mean that's what our generation does when we want to change the world, right? We make a facebook group! Haha...

I know fb has way too much information on all of us, but is our BMI index one of them? Have weight-loss companies gone so far that they've resorted to the "muffin-top" ad campaign. Come on people!

Gggrrrrrrr......