What's more important?

Important news bulletin: Identity Crisis Sweeps America, What can we do now?

I think many people struggle with their idea of health because of the body image our media presents to us. 

For guys, it is the extremely lean muscular physique presented by professional athletes, models and unrealistic "reality" t.v. shows.  The "perfect man" has been engraved into our heads as the Abercrombie/Aqua Di Gio "Fabio" from the "I can't believe its not butter" commercials.  This image seems to insinuate the requirement of a "Gabriel" type name to fit the model body.  Characteristics of this man include:

• Longer flowing dark brown hair.
• Extremely lean/muscular physique.
• Dark tanned skin.
• A runway model woman at our side at all times.
• Very tight white undies that don't cut into the muscular waste of the man.
• No shirt nor body hair.

How unrealistic is this?  Well, if you already have been blessed with an Ectomorph (lean and muscular) physique, then improving on what you already have is not difficult for the most part.  But for the other 82% of men in the world, taking our Endomorph (heavier and naturally bigger) or Mesomorph (somewhere in the middle of the other types) physique, and shrinking it down to the image of an Ectomorph is extremely difficult and can be very depressing when we plateau and find it impossible to take our wider frame and make it a thinner frame.  The same is said for men as well as women.

But, duh dunna duh!!!! (exciting videogame "I found an awesome item!!" sound) I have a proposition!!!!

Instead of trying to cater our bodies to those in the media (Reggie Bush, Fabio, Hugh Jackman, George Bush), why don't we embrace the bodies we've been blessed by God to live in??  I say this with the experience of realizing I will never be Fabio.. ( :'( I'm bawling on the inside... not really ) and with the experience of realizing the gifts I have been blessed with! I read a book once that was on losing FAT, and not just any body weight, and the book started off with a 30 page chapter about self actualization and goal setting with the resonating theme "be yourself" ringing throughout the 30 inspiring pages.

That's what we need to do!!! Be ourselves when we set our goals.  We need to be able to confront our body types with confidence and we need to be able to say "Oh, that's who I am.. Sweet.... (in a Peter Griffin voice)" If your lacking on the ability to impersonate Peter Griffin, you can still be happy with WHO YOU ARE and improve on WHAT YOU HAVE.  So i guess my final point and theme of this blog is this:

In setting goals for ourselves, keep ourselves in mind. When we lose sight of who we are and what OUR potential is, we begin to no longer focus on ourselves and we lose sight of our goals, therefor losing the motivation to keep on going.  Be happy with YOURSELVES, and keep in mind that when you change your body, you're not changing yourself, you're improving yourself.