Will it last you a life time?

The Human Body

I went looking for an ideal body to work towards. I scrolled through Tumblr, Instagram and a few other places and as I was scrolling I thought to myself that these girls were stunning, truly they had worked for their bodies. Now I know that I have a good body but what girl doesn’t want to be a goddess. When I was naively looking I wasn’t searching for envy or “thin-spriation” just some motivation and what I feel I could get.

I got bored and rolled through my news feed and what I saw made me laugh to myself. We will get back to why this made me giggle out loud after I explain a few thing.

1. I am a dancer. I study dance at The University of Auckland.
2. My body is my tool of employment.
3. I don’t treat my body as a temple and I know I should.
4. I have a fast metabolism.
5. My idea of the “ideal body” image has changed.
6. As long as I am healthy then I am happy.

So scrolling through Facebook as I was, there I saw a girl who did my degree. She is fit, strong and happy with her body though she is working on it. (Hence her full body photo as progress shots). Now she was not anything close to my “ideal body”. She was beautiful though. What made me outwardly laugh though was that her body was what she needed for her lifestyle. This gal is active every single day. She eats her greens and she truly treats her body like a temple. She wasn’t thin. She was built, and good on her. I had a moment of realizing that my body wont ever look “ideal”. It honestly wont.

Why?

• My legs are powerful, they have muscles to do a job of taking me through the air.
• My arms have definition. Because they have to carry the weight of myself and someone else sometimes.
• My stomach isn’t dead flat. It doesn’t have abs though either. It is the power station of my control and stability.
• My lungs. Cardio. I have little of. I do not need it. It works its way to be as much as needed per show.
• My feet. Well they have a job to do and there is no point trying to make them pretty when I rip them up everyday.

I have a dancing body. It has a job. I work it to each show, job, contract. What happens between those times is up to my diet and how well my body recovers.

What I now have burnt into the backs of my eyelids is that “you only have one body make it last”. As I write this I am currently on the couch. Confided to this one place. On the 26th of January I did something to my back/nerve/leg/buggered myself. Went to the hospital-yes I did a good job. I have a week of work, two specialist appointments and another doctors appointments. The one thing keeping me from doing all the things; work, dance, run, workout. Is that if I do not take care of my body now I wont have a body to work with for the rest of my life. For a 20 year old, thats PRETTY BIG.

So whilst I sit here and type, think about your actions and if your body will last a life time. Re-think your ‘ideal body’. See what your lifestyle really requires you to look like.