Operation Beautiful

Per Operation Beautiful (www.operationbeautiful.com):  "The mission of Operation Beautiful is to post anonymous notes in public places for other women to find. The point is that WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL. You are enough... just the way you are!"  They are also dedicating a week to writing about body image issues, getting fit, losing weight, etc.  All bloggers are welcome.  Follow the link above and email your posting to get it linked to their site.

Given that 95% of my blog is about my journey to become fit, I thought I would write about something else that I just recently (read: about an hour ago) started thinking about:  self-worth.  I would like to start with a quote from Geneen Roth's book Women Food and God: "The most difficult part of teaching people to respect and listen to their own bodies is overcoming their conviction that there is nothing to respect."  I am very confident in the work I do.  I am very confident in my intelligence.  I am very confident that I am good at anything that requires any amount of rational thought.  On the other hand, I am not confident in my physical abilities, or unfortunately, my physical appearance.  I have just recently started to feel attractive again, after losing 15 pounds.  I am still overweight - probably by another 15 pounds, give or take.  So, yes, that means I was 30 pounds overweight and I felt very unattractive.  That feeling chipped away at my self-worth.  Feeling unattractive affected the confidence I had in my other abilities - it diminished.  I didn't feel as valuable at work because I wasn't attractive.  I didn't respect myself as a human being.  I didn't respect my body for what it was capable of performing on a daily basis - getting me out of bed, showering, driving to work, working all day, driving home, etc.  My body could do all of those things for me and more.  My body could run (not very far or very fast, but it could do it).  My body could climb flights of steps, numerous times, without fail.  Why did having the extra weight allow me to overlook all of the amazing things my body does for me on a regular basis?  That's a good question and I don't know the answer.  What I do know is this:  since I've started becoming more active, since I've started using my body to do new, different and difficult things, I've learned to appreciate it for what it can do, not just for how it looks.  Since I've started doing intense physical exercise, I can't not appreciate it.  I have to feed it property, treat it well and acknowledge that it does indeed do amazing things on a regular basis.  I may not like how it looks right now, but it doesn't have to be pretty to be beautiful.