My Perfect Weight
I simply love getting something for nothing, something I didn’t have to pay for…something Free!!! So I was delighted to discover a new pop up bookshop in my local shopping centre where you can pick up 3 books each time you visit at no cost. The shop is run by local volunteers and part of a scheme called Healthy Planet which aims to prevent books going into landfill. What a great idea hey?
So whilst browsing the different genres of books in the shop I came across a huge section titled “health & fitness” and let’s just say it was very well stocked with all sorts of diet and exercise titles from the last five or six decades, with a leaning towards the 80s.
Now I already have a fully stocked library of such books at home but I came across one which for some reason caught my eye. “Perfect Weight” by Deepak Chopra…I think it was the retro design of the cover and the cheesy smiling photo of Deepak and it became one of my 3 chosen books, along with a poetry collection and another fitness title by the one and only Opera Winfrey!!!
Wow, wow, wow…back to the Perfect Weight book.
What an interesting take on weightloss and the quest of finding your perfect weight, it was unlike any other book I have read, and I have read many. Quite early on in the book Deepak asks you to consider what you think your perfect weight is. For me I would say about 12stone4lbs (or 172lbs), but I don’t know why I think that’s perfect for me, maybe its got something to do with my BMI calculation. But I couldn’t tell you the last time I weighted that…in fact I would argue I have never ever weighed that…but of course I know I must have done, but it was probably at some point in the 90s when I was too busy listening to Boys to Men and stressing about my frizzy hair to worry about weighing myself.
My weight has fluctuated hugely over the past 10 years ranging from 190lbs that I reached whilst training for the London Marathon to almost 300lbs during my pregnancy, so I don’t really know what my perfect weight is, or what it looks like, and most importantly what it feels like. Deepak believes that your perfect weight is not something that can be decided by a chart, or by comparing yourself to others. Instead it is something that you will just know if you are listening to your body and accepting a balance of exercise and nutrition that is right for you. He also feels we need to be more comfortable with the body’s we have, instead of obsessing about the ones we want – which makes so much sense.
It made me think about those ladies we all know that don’t have a catwalk body and perhaps carry extra weight, but because they are at peace with their weight and live a balanced life they just ooze confidence, and well beauty I suppose.
Besides, I have learned over the years just how incredible our body’s are, no matter their size. The fact I ran a marathon is testament to that. We put our bodies through so much stress during our lives with bad food, alcohol, drugs, inactivity…but when given the right conditions our bodies are capable of complete transformation that rights most of the wrongs. I love what Deepak says about this
“the body is not so much a thing as it is a process”
with 98% of the atoms in our body being replaced during its lifetime. Simply amazing!!
Perfect Weight by Deepak Chopra
Despite the age of this paperback I really got a lot from it and I now have some renewed confidence in my weightloss journey. I now know I am doing a lot of things right at the moment…listening to my hunger levels, eating more natural, fresh foods and cutting back on fizzy drinks, alcohol and red meat which don’t agree with me.
I had a 5lb weightloss this week when I got on the scales at weightwatchers so I must be doing something right. I probably have another 50 or 60lbs to lose before I can ask myself have I found my perfect weight…but do you know what? That is so not my focus right now. I am training for a Spring Marathon and I am finding a more balanced lifestyle that compliments my new role as “mum” and that is all that matters, because as Mr Chopra so clearly states in his book
“your weight right now is the natural outcome of what you eat combined with the energy requirements of your lifestyle and the persistent effects of millions of years of human evolution”
Your body is not in it’s current state for any other reason than that!!! So what do we think about the concept of having a “Perfect Weight”?
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I decided a long time ago that I like food too much and I’m inherently too lazy to be thin, thus I will be ‘this’ weight for as long as I can maintain the running, training and avoiding the last biscuit in the jar. Not long, probably.
I can’t even picture myself thin to be quite honest, I just want to be healthy rather than looking a certain way…so in many respects its quite exciting to see how I change as I get closer to some kind of goal weight!! The bottom line is you have to be at peace with your own body.
I agree, it isn’t about charts and the scales it’s about feeling comfortable and healthy in your own skin 🙂
Scales don’t measure performance or inches, they do fill our heads with doubt and anxiety….
Absolutely!!!
Interesting. I think like you, my idea of an ideal weight is driven by a bmi calculation that I haver never been close to. I only started running this summer but am beginning to see my body change… not on the scales though. If running brings only fitness and tone but no weight loss I’m beginning to think I’ll be ok with it. I’m feeling stronger and more confident…. and I don’t want to live a life without cake 😉
Exactly. When I am running regularly I feel so strong and I care less about my dress size. Although I am probably about 3 stone overweight so I still hope that weightloss will be a side effect. I am just less worried about a specific goal weight or dress size. I will know it when I get there
Balanced thinking is what will get us to our goals. Balanced efforts too. I’ve fallen into the trap before, of thinking I needed to weigh what my BMI says is “healthy” but to get to that weight, I’ld have to stop eating for days on end (been there, done that). Instead, I want the healthy feeling to tell me I’ve reached a good weight, regardless if my jeans are still tight.