Don't Wait and See

 Ah summer time! Time to enjoy the summer sunshine, the warm breezes, the refreshing rains, and if you're lucky enough, the crashing waves of the ocean as you relax on a beach somewhere! We have been enjoying some time in Southern California and there is no lack of potential clients running, biking, rollerblading and power walking down the walkways by the beach.
I am very distressed by the number of women, and men, who are tirelessly pursuing the unattainable standards being purported by our culture's obsession with thinness. I want to scream and tell them all to stop! To just live their lives to the fullest -- having fun and enjoying their day at the beach. To not care what others may or may not be thinking of them, but to just relax and enjoy the body that God has given them. In Ephesians 5:28 it reads, "In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies." The writer of Ephesians is not promoting a narcissistic, self-absorbed obsession with self-love! The Greek word for love means 'to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing.'


Can you imagine? What would our world be like if we could actually just love our bodies in an appropriate God-honouring, self-honouring way? To be 'well pleased/contented' with our bodies -- thus allowing us to get on with just living and squeezing the most out of each moment of this life! Just take care of your body in a balanced way. Moderate eating. Moderate physical activity. (You don't even need to walk into a gym)! The Canada Food Guide gives an overview of all the basic food groups and what appropriate portion sizing looks like. Eat a variety of those foods, in moderation, and you'll be fuelling your body in an effective way. It's all about portion size and frequency. Once you've started a practice of moderation, choose to love and accept your body for what it is -- a carrying case for your soul and mind to get to the beach!

If you have an eating disorder or struggle with disordered eating like restricting or overeating/binging, don't 'wait and see' what happens as your day wears on. Make a plan for how you are going to make your day successful. 'Waiting to see' opens the door to rationalizing, minimizing and denial, three very ugly bedfellows! One of the struggles with 'slipping' as you endeavour to change any destructive behaviour is that all or nothing thinking often kicks in like a pendulum swinging from one ineffective side to the other. This can set the stage for further slipping as you might rationalize that 'today is wrecked' so might as well blow it for the rest of the day and get on track tomorrow. So don't wait and see! As you can see from this photo I took at the beach, this little girl is about to find out what happens when you 'wait and see' what a brother does with a lot of sand! Make a plan - be strategic and determine what you need to do today in order to be successful. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, it only leaves you wide open to messing up and getting discouraged. Being strategic reinforces that you have the ability to make significant, effective change -- that you can succeed!