This weekend I indulged in my usual necessary evil of attending a weekly Masala Bhangra class. I had been giving the class rave reviews (despite it kicking my butt each week) so a good friend of mine decided to tag along. Before the class started we were speaking a bit about our fitness struggles when she says

“Yes girl, I need to get in shape because I’m not getting any younger and no man worth his weight wants a fat wife.”

Pause

First of all not only is my friend not fat, could she stand to lose a few sure, no more than most of us, but for her to say she’s only getting in shape so she can snag a husband disturbed me. Outside of the fact that you shouldn’t be trying to spend forever with someone whose level of love and respect for you is measured by the width of your waist, a person should be getting fit because they want to live a longer, happier life for themselves … not someone else.

You should be working out so you don’t die of heart disease or diabetes. So you can run and play with your kids, walk the Great Wall of China, or walk period without getting tired and winded. You should be getting fit so you can live your best life now.

Of course I called my friend out on her reasoning and she felt I was fooling myself if I thought people only got fit to live better. I’m not fooling myself, I know that there are people out there just like her who are getting healthy for all the wrong reasons.

Even knowing that my point is still and always will be that you loving you enough to live better should be all the reason you need to get your mind and body right. And if you need more than that to get healthy, you’ll have the body and you’ll have the husband, but you’ll never have happiness and that’s worth more than anything.

What are your reasons for getting healthy?

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10 Comments

  1. for the first time in my life, i am on this journey for me! not for an outfit, an event, a person. nothing. just me, being healthy, being able to enjoy life while not lamenting about being overweight or health issues. i have friends who are dieting. i am not. i am eating healthy. i am eating moderately. i have friends who work out to lose weight. i am not. i work out to move my body and strengthen it. the “it’s a lifestyle” light has finally come on!

    • @Melissa: I completely understand you on some many levels. I lost weight last year because of a mirror. I bought this huge mirror from IKEA and I shamed myself for 6 moths as I lost weight. I found myself teetering on the boundaries of an eating disorder, as a result.

      Kudos to you

    • @Melissa: Your answer really resonates with me. At the age of 51 I can finally say, like you, I am eating right and being active for all the right reasons. Go us!

  2. My father had a stroke at age 45 and has continued to suffer from health problems due to his weight. His most recent diagnosis was with vascular dementia (at his current age of 52), which means that he will have a lifetime of assisted care. I am getting healthy so as not to repeat this harmful cycle that accompanies poor health habits!

  3. The biggest obstacle to losing weight the right way is patience. After a few weeks of training, lots if us want to see results. If we don’t see tangible results, bad habits start to creep back in to our psyches. It took me 5 years to lose weight after being overweight for most of my life. The journey was well worth it, with peaks and valleys and plateaus.

  4. TBH, for years I have been trying to get healthy for the wrong reasons. I’m going to Italy in September and I gotta get RIGHT!

  5. I stay in shape for numerous reasons, but I would DEFINTELY be lying to y’all if I said physical appearance isn’t one of them. Call me vain or misguided if you want, but having a hot body is definitely one of my main goals for losing that last 5 or 10 lbs. Of course health, longetivity, ability, blah, blah, blah, etc. are also tops on my list, but I take a lot of pride in my appearance, my weight being a big part of that.

    I’m not losing weight for a man. My husband has said numerous times that it doesn’t matter to him what I weigh (and since many of his ex’s have been significantly bigger than me, I’m inclined to believe him). But I definitely feel better about myself and my appearance the slimmer I get.

    Maybe if I was overweight or if I felt the impact weight was having on my body I would be more inclined to change for health reasons. But since I’m rather slim, somewhat young, and pretty healthy, my motivation to lose that last 10 is a little more superficial.

  6. I’m on a fitness journey because my family is predisposed to issues stemming from obesity. No bueno. I don’t want to be a statistic and I also want to fit comfortably into the clothes I already own. I find myself avoiding pictures because of my weight and I’m entirely too pretty for that 😉

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