Life is Healthy

Thanks, everyone, for your input on my last blog about my image being used in places I didn’t authorize. Roni, I may take you up on your offer and send YOU after them if I get no satisfaction! LOL

I was bored in line at the grocery store yesterday and looked through a celeb magazine showing photos of skin/cellulite on stars (women, OF COURSE. Why are men always spared those photos?). The magazine, as usual, branded these loose skin and cellulite issues as “problems” – horrible and wretched and “how can they stand to live with themselves” type of problems. I thought to myself, ‘It’s just skin! How is that hurting them or hurting me or hurting anyone else?’

Then I thought about how air-brushed our celebrity culture is and wondered if most people believe that air-brushed and tons of makeup is reality? Is that what we are all to aspire to?

I have skin issues. Not as many as some people who’ve lost a lot of weight, and I don’t think of my issues as a problem, but I’d be pissed if someone took a photo of my stomach or my inner thighs when I was unaware and plastered it on the cover of a magazine and called it “ugly” or labeled it “bad.” What’s bad about it? What’s so awful terrible about our bodies that other people are so offended?

Fat or thin, we all have things we don’t like about ourselves, but making peace with our outside appearance is better than labeling ourselves as inferior or not worthy or somehow flawed because we aren’t air-brush perfect. I like to think how I conduct myself, if I’m kind and show love and compassion, is more important than how much loose skin I have or if my face breaks out once in awhile.

There’s a balance between body and mind that these magazine editors aren’t getting. I may not always like how I look, but I don’t ever think that my appearance is more important than the person I am inside.

OK, rant over. On to my food discovery.

My new favorite pre-workout pre-breakfast: half a lite English muffin, toasted and topped with half a sliced banana and 1 tablespoon of PB2, a powdered peanut butter made by Bell Plantation that has only 2.5 grams of fat in 2 tablespoons – a MIRACLE food in my book.

I used to think people were nuts to combine peanut butter and bananas. (Wasn’t that Elvis’s favorite sandwich? See why I thought it was a nuts thing to do? I love Elvis, but he was a bit odd.)

Anyway, I was in the mood for PB2 and an English muffin on Sunday, but I also wanted some fruit and bananas were all we had in the house (except for prunes and I wasn’t in the mood so early in the morning, you know?). I thought of Elvis and all the other people I know who rave about peanut butter and bananas and I tried it. And I loved it. And now it’s my new favorite pre-workout pre-breakfast. It will get me through 45 minutes on the arc trainer, a brisk 10-minute walk and a 15-minute ab workout this morning before coming home and having a “real” breakfast. Probably a spinach omelet. Not sure yet.

What will you feed your body today and more importantly, how do you FEEL about your body today?