An Apology To My Body

[ShayFL]

Dear Body,

Boy, I really owe you an apology. You have stuck by me through thick and thin. Literally. I ballooned you to nearly 170 pounds and have brought you down to 110.

Let's start from the beginning. I have hurt you real bad and I want to make sure I dont miss anything. You deserve some recognition here. When I was young I wasnt very nice to you at all. I drank soda whenever I could, I ate candy like it was going out of style and made you eat sugar by the spoonfuls. I would get Strep throat month after month and curse you for getting sick all of the time. I fed the spinach to the dog. I ate the pork chop and mashed potatoes instead. Remember when Mom said to "brush your teeth good"? Yeah, I didnt do that. Yup...skipped the flossing too. So I am sorry you had to sit through all of that drilling. Im also sorry for the tooth I let rot out. It hurt.

In my teen years I let you get pretty overweight. I fed you lots of Funyuns, cheesburgers and ice cream. I didnt exercise you much. In fact, I took "Health" and "Driver's Ed" just so I could skip out on the exercise. For this I apologize. I let you get incredibly fatigued and I kept you inside sleeping instead of getting some healthy sunlight. You started getting sick. And who could blame you? For that, I hated you, and I made sure you knew it.

And let's not forget the 20's. Out dancing till 3 am and eating a huge breakfast at Shoney's at 4. Then not getting you to bed until 6. Oh and there was some alcohol too. That wasnt very nice. Weekend after weekend. And then there was our little bulimic secret. My G-d did I abuse you. You havent forgotten the Friday nights....I know you havent because you talk to me through my bowels still. Friday night Pizza Hut. An entire large pizza....pan crust no less!! And then if that was not enough, I tortured you by eating a pint of Hagen Daz.....Vanilla Swiss Almond. You struggled. You churned my insides. You made me so groggy. But I didnt listen to you. No I drank some "Slim Tea" just so you could forcefully evacuate all that food the next day. Followed by a dozen Dunkin Donuts the next morning. That hurt you. I bet you thought it would never end? And unlike the teen years, I got your exercising. But not in a healthy way. No. I made you do the stair-stepper for hours. I made you lift weights at 4 in the morning, so you would have enough time after work to do enough cardio to work off the last binge. I made you sweat and groan. I gave you injuries. Your knees started hurting and I gave you chronic shoulder pain. I am sorry.

You started talking to me louder in my 30's, so I kind of listened. I decided to feed you "healthy" food. So I forced you to live for 6 months on nothing but raw and sprouted foods. Then when you became severely anemic, I let you eat some fish. But I still forced you to eat sprouted grains and soy. Lots of soy. Im so sorry. Please forgive me for that vegetarian stint as well. It was just way too many beans. Of course at the time I didnt know it was all of those "healthy" whole grains that was hurting you the most.

Well now I do. So this month I will turn 40. I want you to know that I plan on taking very good care of you for the next 40 years. I promise I will never stuff fast, fried and nasty food into you ever again. I promise to be diligent and make sure no gluten gets into you. If it does by accident, I will not yell at you or punish you. I will instead rest, drink lots of pure water and send love to you. I will not look in the mirror and say "I hate you" ever again. I will love you. I will care for you.

Thank you my body. Thank you.

[msmini14]

Wow Shay, that was a good post. I too owe my body an apology. I was so destructive at one point in my life.

Thank you for sharing that with us =) It can be hard to admit things like that.

[dilettantesteph]

The teeth thing could be damage to enamel from celiac disease and not just eating sugar and not brushing well. I have the same problem. Some teeth had to be filled as soon as they came in. I didn't even have time to damage them by diet and poor oral hygene.

[Live2BWell]

Wow,thank you so much for sharing that! I think maybe I'll take your idea and appologize to my body, because it's certainly in need of one (and I am in need of some self forgiveness!)

I too have comitted myself to taking better care of my body, no excuses... Life's too short, and too beautiful.

((( Shay )))

[Wonka]

Great post.

I often wonder if all the abuse that I gave my body isn't coming back to bite me in the butt now. I was a teenage alcoholic, I have been sober for 26 years now.

I'm trying really hard to be good to myself. It's hard. I'm so sick right now that getting exercise has been difficult. Eating is making me sick but not eating isn't an option.

I'll get through this. Others have, so I will as well.