self worth

This morning I was reading this blog, which had a post about weight.

At the end of the post the writer posed the question: do you guys find that your happiness & peace fluctuates along with your weight?

I found myself compelled to comment on this and once I was done I felt like sharing those words here too:

I used to base my self worth upon my weight (which was never good enough) and the saddest part is that those are the type of thoughts that lead people to disordered eating. Exercise (and spirituality) actually helped me to change those thoughts. As I worked on becoming a better dancer (in college), learned to love running (I am running my first marathon in June!), and improved my relationship with God, I began to see that my body, no matter what it's shape or weight, no matter how much I hated my knees, my body was a gift from God, given to me in love that I had stewardship to take care of (aka eat healthy and exercise). I also began to see my body as a tool to help me accomplish things. If I want to continue to use my body to run, dance, clean my house, one day have babies, and most importantly to serve others I need to love it, take care of it, and not set stringent standards on what is acceptable or beautiful and what is not. No matter how much weight you lose, you are still not in control of your specific body type, and so many other factors, so just as you say, before you even begin to lose weight or change your life you must change your heart. You have to give yourself love.

self esteem & jamba

Sometimes I can feel kind of lost as far as fashion is concerned. Some of my clothes {like pants that flare a little too much for boot cut} are making me feel old/out of style, but I am not sure how much I love the skinny jean thing. Some days I feel good in them, other days it's more like, "whoa, skinny jeans are for skinny people so don't go there girl."

I usually have awesome self esteem {definitely hasn't always been the case} but whenever I go shopping for clothes that kinda goes out the window. I won't go into all the details because I'm sure most of the women of the world have been there, but let's just say I wasn't feeling that great about myself after some shopping.

I was really tempted to go get a giant DDP and a cake doughnut with rainbow sprinkles to make myself feel better/worse? Who knows how it would have turned out. Instead, I decided to try to be better to my body and go to Jamba Juice because I had a gift card from one of my students from Christmas.

Apparently those teen workers at Jamba were tuned in with my soul {and don't worry no one is paying me to say this to my 6 followers} because they decided to give me a free bowl of oatmeal. I guess they couldn't stand to see a pathetic expression on such a beautiful girl. Ha, no really they were about to throw it all away, but that just doesn't sound as awesome. So basically, me and my $5 gift card paid 17 cents for a 20 oz. jamba juice and a side of oatmeal.

and if you know me, you know I love oatmeal,

I have been known to eat 3 bowls in one day.
It was delish and I give it a terrible t recommendation.
I got blueberries & blackberries in it; I think next time: bananas

Right now, Biff is kind of attacking me/pawing me to death trying to get me to take him on a walk so just one more thing.

Don't forget to root for me today in my 1 mile race against Lee.

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Who do you think will win? And what will the winner's time be?

What boosts your self esteem?

For me, it's duh, running and surprisingly I feel way hotter in my work out clothes than a real outfit.

Don't you just love oatmeal?

I literally eat it everyday; except yesterday when I was diligently fasting only to find out when I got to church it wasn't fast Sunday!