Your Best Body Yet

Your best body yet. It was on the cover of a magazine stand. I was skimming the headlines as I waited in line at the grocery store. We’ve all seen and read a similar headline, at the grocery store, on our social media feed, commercials on the TV. It’s all around us. Your best body is just one diet away. Try this, buy that. Anything to chase that perfect body, your best body yet. 

What if your best body yet is the body you have today? The body you were born with, the full genetic code that determined how tall you would be, how prone to storing fat, your shape, your curves? The body that carried you through each step of every day, all the highs and all the lows? The body with all the imperfections, the parts that the media is so willing to tell you are too big, or too small, or the wrong color. The parts that might be broken, that don’t work the way other bodies do? What if that very body with all the flaws is your best body yet?

What if you don’t actually have to fix anything, but rather stand in the strength of who you are today and from that place of strength nourish and care for your body because this is your best body yet. No starvation, no punishing workouts, no self hate. No waiting for tomorrow, just embracing everything you are today. Radical self acceptance & compassion, tuning in to your inner wisdom. Nourishing yourself with the rest, movement, and nutrition you need and enjoy because you are worthy of such self care, not because it will get you to some elusive version of “your best body yet”.

For me, this has been a lifelong journey. I have vivid memories from highschool of searching for my best body yet. I went a year without sugar. I cut most fat out of my diet. I ate baked potatoes plain for dinner and whole wheat bread with nothing on it and apples for lunch. Confession...I actually like plain wheat bread and apples...I don’t like plain baked potatoes! I ate because it was “time” to eat and suffered deep hunger when it wasn’t. And in the process I lost complete touch with my inner wisdom. I was so far from nourishing my body even while I was pursuing my best body yet. 

Fast forward one college degree in nutrition and several years of cultivating my own inner wisdom and I found that my best body yet came as a result of treating my body as if it already was my best body yet, beautiful and strong and worthy of being exactly as it was at that moment. That does not mean I just stopped trying. My life has been built on a foundation of pursuing health. I exercise almost every day. I eat an abundance and variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. It does mean that over time I’ve gotten better and better at listening to my body, nourishing my body, and loving my body. And in that process I can truly say I’ve found my best body yet - imperfect, beautiful, and strong.