About a year ago, I started to look at my naked body in the mirror every morning. Although I had by then already lost 7 kg with banting, I hated looking at myself, because all I could see was this 68 year old woman with sagging breasts, lots of loose skin, full of stretch marks from 4 pregnancies, quite a few operation scars and a neck and face full of wrinkles. It was not nice. I hated the idea of ageing, and the thought that my youth was gone and that nothing could ever change it, made me feel depressed.
But slowly my perception changed. The more I looked at myself, the more I realised that this human body that I was looking at every morning, was the greatest of all God's creations.
What I was looking at, was a body with an incredible ability to heal itself and to adapt itself to reconstruction. When I was a child I lost much of my hearing after having chicken pox. In the early nineties I was totally deaf. In 1998 a bionic implant in my cochlea once again made me part of the hearing world. My brain adapted to the new electronic sounds in an incredible, awesome way, and shortly after the operation I was once more part of the amazing world of sounds.
The scars on my body are the evidence of my body's capacity to heal after things went wrong. A year ago I was diagnosed with bladder cancer and I had 4 operations and 6 bouts of chemo in one year. After each op and after the chemo, my body reacted so well and I felt so amazingly good. I firmly believe this to be the result of my healthy lchf lifestyle.
The loose skin and stretch marks are the evidence of 4 little humans beings conceived and carried for 9 months before giving birth to each. . My sagging breasts was a source of pleasure for four babies and a hubby. All my wrinklles are reflecting a lifetime of emotions....of happiness, laughing, crying, sadness, fear, tension.....of a life fully lived.
No, I don't hate looking at my body anymore. But I am very sad thad I did not care for it better when I was younger. I am sorry about all the sugar and rubbish I dumped in it, for all the excuses I had for not living healthy, that I did not see my body as a living miracle and that I did not appreciate the wonder of life.
Today I love my body the way it looks and I am dedicated to care for it by eating clean and healthy, getting exercise and sun and by being thankful and happy for the new zest I have for life.