Rhetoric?
Deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA. An organism’s unit of heredity. While in my video I believe I noted that we each have a pair of 26 chromosomes from both paternal and maternal side to total 52, scientifically reported states 23 per side to total 46. Fifty-two or forty-six, we are each an incredible phenomenon.
I am no geneticist, but I can see how the fascination of our very makeup could attract any curious mind to dig deeper. Even today, we are still a mystery to fully and truly discover. Take for instance the very thought of one being skinny. If I had not lived enough years to see the weights of many fluctuate, including that of my own, I would think being skinny to be a genetic makeup. However, even celebrities are testimonials that one can change their physical appearance, this way or that.
“You’re so skinny. Why work out?” has always stumped me. It is one of those questions I take in as more of a rhetorical question and not one to have some genius response. I have seen myself push through at the gym. I KNOW why I stay “skinny”.
What if all the health gurus are only partially correct about weight loss? I mean, yes. Exercise is important. Eating right is important. Getting enough sleep is important. Maintaining a low stress level is important, too. However, I must question, how come there is so much money to be spent in losing weight and yet, the problem still exists? For many, cyclically?
What if we forget the one important piece to it all that no business guru wants for any of their clients to truly grasp? No. Not just the desire to want to be fit (“skinny” can be unhealthy just as much as it can be a good thing), but the actual mental desire, drive and determination to be fit. Let me think back to the first time I must have pondered upon this question.
A slender mother withholding her eight-years old child from eating much of anything taught me compassion toward this thought provocation back in high school. While the mother was petite and slender, upon meeting the paternal side of this family, beside being loving and affable women, they were big-boned and thus, on the heavier side. The slender mother tried making only healthy foods for her child to eat with hardly any fats or seasoning. Upon eating one of the spinach pasta dish, I quickly understood the sacrifice she was putting this child through at such a young age. The paternal side of the family served chocolate cake! Quite a difficult comparison to beat!
This weight “battle” became such a big ordeal that at just the age of 8 this otherwise jovial and pretty daughter was placed under a well-known eating program. And yet, the weight continued to be an issue. I witnessed both families fighting over who was doing the right thing as this young girl silently tried to just do what normal girls at her age should do- live, love, laugh.
The mind leads the body. I believe I had ancestors who had to have understood this to survive. To thrive, they had to take it to another level. Either my ancestors had an image to uphold or the physical demands they met daily required strength and agility, I may never know. My certainty is that I have always had the desire to be physically fit even as a child. Observing my youngest of five who voluntarily goes outside at the age of 8 to do push-ups and squat jumps in the driveway on sunny days, no doubt, tells me he exhibits a genetic disposition passed down. I must wonder, then, what part of my DNA makeup pushes me to maintain physical fitness, however? Physical or mental?
I love food too much to suffer from it nor do I sit around and think all the lovely calories I intake will just burn themselves off.
Whether the mental aspect designs a pathway to either a direction of a healthy lifestyle to the opposing side is what I believe to be the key factor of one’s physical state of being. One must think, if you have tried several ways to not just lose the weight, but keep it off, is it because you can’t or subconsciously believe you never could?
As an educator, I have repeatedly heard, “I can’t do this” or “I don’t know how to do this” before a student even makes an attempt to begin. My response to this is that, “You have just told your body to not even try because you first believed you couldn’t. Why not have your mind to believe you can so your body actually tries?” See the difference there?
I have long since defined myself best at being lean and strong. Just as soon as I feel myself to slide away from that mental image, I go into “recovery” state and start to immediately have a plan of action to do something about it. Hence, I do not stay “skinny” (not so much as when I worked out seven days a week, but I still try) because I let it happen. I know that in able for me to stay lean, I MUST work out. The gym is where I can relieve incoming stress, helping me to sleep well at night. And, so, while I indulge in a good old fashion warm chocolate cake (a la mode), such choice already has me visualizing a power cardio the next day.
In a world where power and greed seems to be the taker of one’s sub-conscience to do right and be right, our own desire for self-preservation and generational wealth leads us to treating those we can as means to breed. Slavery worldwide exists to this day. (Whether the enslaved have learned that perhaps their ancestral debt has long been paid off is to the “owner’s” silence or secret.) Breeding of humans can be spoken of as a means to propagate more of the strong and mighty.
However, is the body merely its own exhibit for level of strength or in deepest of truth, the stature of the body is merely a reflection of one’s strength of the mind to attain such appearance? We should know looking strong does not equate actually having strength. Being skinny should not be considered being healthy in the same manner. As a disclosure, healthy physique should not suggest higher levels of intellect or ability to become successful. That is essentially, however, the schema. One’s mental focal point IS the destiny of the body.
Whether all my ancestors were fierce fighters, leaders, or just role models of such kind, I will make a stand to say that the strength of the mind does not and should not be depicted solely on one’s physical attributes. However, I would like to believe that the mind makes up the decision to either be fit or quite the contrary and thus, the body follows like any other orders it receives.
Maintenance is yet another milestone. Attaining and maintaining are simply two separate constituents. The mental consistency must require itself to be surrounded by the lifestyle it has or desires to uphold. Otherwise, the mind could easily weaken and surrender to the former. One could eventually find the weight again that was shortly lost like an unhealthy relationship difficult to understand why someone keeps coming back to.
I could easily make some excuse that after having five children I am given rights to just let go and let live. However, my mind tells me that this is never to be me. Part of my definition of “me” is my physical appearance. No. Not because I worship myself as a temple to be praised. As I tell my own husband, gaining weight signifies loss of self-control for me. People may balk at this belief, but it has been what I’ve tricked my mind it has to stand forth on so I continue to strive for good health and fitness.
Choose to allow the body to lead the mind, the body will try to fool one to believe that “what you see is what you get”. Strengthening and maintaining the mind to lead the body, the mind will convince the body that “what you put in is what you get out”. Follow the lead.
I have not followed-up on that eight years-old girl, but my heart wants to believe that she is out there defining herself just fine. Mental perception and practice is the way to arriving and maintaining success in whatever we decide to strive toward. Losing weight doesn’t have to be a problem. When the mind is ready, the body has long awaited to start. Until then, we should feel entitled at times to be that eight years-old girl again who just freely wants to be- to live, to love, to laugh.
