Day One: Get Started

Today's challenge was to refrain from weighing myself, and to start the challenge journal.

Before I write on the proposed prompt, though, I want to talk about weight. Weight is something that I have always struggled with. Once over the summer I was showing a coworker pictures of me on Facebook that my mom had posted from my childhood. Photo after photo showed me with some sort of food item. And to be perfectly honest, there were days my mom would come home from the Hostess store and my brothers and I would sit on the couch and eat Hostess for dinner. And I hate exercise. I've tried, and failed. I swam in high school and played water polo, but I hate running. And now in college I'm terrified of the school pool with all its skinny, tan, blonde girls. I don't shave above my knees and my thighs are the circumference of a Polynesian's bicep. There is a reason that I weigh as much as I do.

When I was a freshman in high school my mom had gastric bypass surgery. She had never stuck to a diet or exercised in any part of my memory. And as she lost the weight she would tell everyone how much she lost, except for me, because she didn't want to upset me. She lost so much weight that she looked sick. Her armpits were a tunnel in a flab of skin. Her stomach still had rolls, but it was a different kind of roll. And when she lost all the weight, I felt like I had lost my mother. When I was 17 my dad advised me to have the same surgery. I learned from an early age from my father that no man would ever want me if I was fat. This is still a fear that I struggle with.

Then one semester I lost 40 pounds. I was taking 18 credits, and I was depressed over the end of my favorite summer ever, and I was really only eating granola bars, peanut butter sandwiches and water. I felt confused and insecure. After having finally come to terms with my body and to know myself inside of it, I was lost again. My body was not my own. And it was during this time, when I was almost a size 14 that I fell for James, and discovered that just because I was smaller didn't mean that a man would want me more. It was the person inside that mattered to people. And one day I would find a man that liked Jessica, not Jessica's body. And I think that I would rather have that than have dozens of men try to date me because of what I looked like. One time the Wyview office specialist asked in response to this, "but you're just trying to test him now." Maybe others out there have the same idea. I think that I should be healthy, but I do not think that I should try to make my body look good in hopes of finding an eternal companion.

That's what I think this comes down to in my mind: health. I think that we need to be less concerned about the numbers (scale, jeans, etc) and more concerned about our health. As I climb the 147 duck pond stairs every day majorly out of breath I think to myself: Jessica Rae, what have you done to your heart? (This is something I definitely need to work on more)

Which brings me to the prompt: express gratitude for the things your body allows you to do.

I am grateful that my body allows me to hug people I care about. I am grateful that it lets me play on the ground with small children. I am grateful that it holds my head up and keeps me breathing. I am grateful for my heart that not only keeps my blood flowing and oxygenated, but allows me to feel. I am grateful that I can feel when I step on glass and when someone caresses my arm. I am grateful that I can stretch when I wake up in the morning. I am grateful that I can tie my own shoes. I am grateful that I can throw bread at the ducks, and place bread on the table in front of my friends. I am grateful that one day my body will be able to make, carry and birth a human being. I am grateful that with every week that goes by, I walk up the duck pond stairs either faster or while talking more than the previous week. I am grateful that I can take my body hiking up the canyon. I am grateful that my body allows me to feel baby blond hair under my fingers. I am grateful that my body allows me to laugh out loud and to raise my eyebrows and make weird facial expressions. I am grateful that this body allows me to see, touch, smell, taste and hear. I am privileged to have a body that resembles that of my Heavenly Father.