Wickedly hungry for a salad.

I enjoy cowboy poetry, thanks to my rancher brother who recites from hundreds of poems he's memorized.  My favorites are the humorous ones, so I get a kick out Baxter Black reciting "A Vegetarian's Nightmare."

Watching this makes me wickedly hungry for a salad!




(I saved this video as a favorite on YouTube a couple years ago, with plans to share it on this blog, then plum forgot.)

The marvelous body.

Sometimes I feel kind towards my body (see: The "Perfect" Body), but usually I feel uncomfortable in my skin.  Towards the end of 2011 (the year I started this blog) I realized part of my emotional eating was linked to my lack of self-love.

Self-love?  Am I supposed to love myself?  Isn't that self-centered and selfish?  I took some time to research this on a spiritual level.  I knew the world would tell me to love myself, but was it okay with God?  I learned that it was indeed.  "Love thy neighbor as thyself" does not translate into "Love everyone except yourself." God loves me unconditionally, and I need to love me too.

I started a "Getting To Love Me" journal to record things about myself, to explore who I am and what God wants me to become, but I still struggled in the self-love department, especially when it came to my physical being.

At the beginning of October I prayed, "Please help me find one thing I can do on a regular basis that will help me like [I still struggle with love] myself better." I felt I needed a specific suggestion... something precise or measurable that I could do.

The very next day after uttering that prayer, I heard a talk by Russell M. Nelson, an Apostle.  He said,

"Each time you look in the mirror, see your body as your temple.  That truth--refreshed gratefully each day--can positively influence your decisions about how you will care for your body and how you will use it.  And those decisions will determine your destiny.  How could this be?  Because your body is the temple for your spirit.  And how you use your body affects your spirit."

Into my heart entered my answer, "Each day express gratitude to God for something specific about your body and you will experience a positive change, you will grow to love yourself."  

Wanting to record the insights, I went to my "Getting To Love Me" journal, and realized I did not have anything in there about my body! Talents, blessings, abilities, ideas, strengths, weaknesses, aspirations… but nothing about my physical self!

So I started a new section, My Body is a Temple of God, and I record, almost daily (I'm not perfect), what I'm grateful for concerning my body.  

• I am thankful for my fingers.  They can play the piano and write.
• I am grateful that my body can hula hoop.
• I am thankful for my uterus which expanded and allowed a safe and healthy environment for my babies to grow and develop.
• I am thankful for my ears.  I can hear birds singing, rain falling, snow crunching under my feet.  I can hear music, and the voices of loved ones.  I can hear thunder as well as whispers of "I love you, Gwamma."

I not only record those things, I kneel in prayer and vocally express my gratitude to God. I already feel kinder towards myself and my body.

I'm grateful for Elder Nelson's talk and the answer to my prayer. Here's a beautiful video based on his inspired message:

Time Machine...yeah right.

I saw a billboard with a picture of some exercise equipment, an all-in-one workout contraption.  The slogan began: "Time machine...."

My mind jumped to the conclusion that exercising would make you appear and/or feel younger, thus taking you back in time.  But then I continued reading: "...it can take you back to size 5."

How disappointing.  Who says 5 is the optimal size?  What does that say about all other body shapes and sizes?

Way to fuel the distorted body image problems that plague our society, advertisers.  Here's my fitness rebuttal for advertising campaigns such as that...

TAKE A HIKE!