Ep. 50 Seeing My Body For What It Is: A Personal Journey

I'm Lacey Jones with Elevate the Individual. Episode 50 seeing My Body for What It Is: A Personal Journey. Before I dig into my thoughts this week, I seriously want to encourage you to listen to the latest episode of The Candid Kiwi title. Masaru, you'll remember my friend Melissa from episode 35, the Journey to Unconditional Love. In this latest episode of The Candid Kiwi, melissa interviews her son, who just turned 18 and graduated from high school. Masaru's honesty, humility, and maturity is aweinspiring as he shares the ups and downs and mistakes and learning opportunities he's had in his life.

I am so grateful that the two of them sat down to share his story. Seriously, we need more voices for our teenage boys and everything they're experiencing. While Masaru's story is unique to him, I know it isn't too far off track from what other boys his age have experienced. And yet, as I work with mothers of teenage boys, I hear thoughts stating that their boys and they themselves feel so alone in all that they're going through, as if their son is the only one making the choices they're making. It simply isn't true. We are more alike than we realize, and I believe as we share more stories about the realities of being a teenage boy in this day and age, we're going to bring this sense of confidence and hope for the future of our boys.

Our boys are amazing. They are doing good things, and they may be a little bit rough around the edges, but we so need them to be who they are with all of their gifts and talents. So please listen to the episode and share as you feel so inspired. Okay, now onto this week's episode, and as I dig in, I wanted to let you know that I am a numbers person. And in my previous corporate life, we were all about the numbers. It's how we analyzed where we were doing well and where we needed to spend some time improving our methods. And it was all about building relationships and analyzing numbers. So as a math lover, it worked for me. But what I've realized is that not all people are numbers people. And often when facts such as numbers are shared, then we apply a meaning to them, and that meaning will be different for each of us based off our own life experiences. That's really just how it works. So as we dig into this episode, I need you to know that I will be sharing numbers about the gravitational pull on the mass of my body. That's right. I'm going to be talking about my weight this week and what I've learned about it as I progress on my journey of loving my body.

I know some people will think nothing of that, but there's a possibility that some may have thoughts about their own bodies that they've tried to move past based on the numbers I share. So please decide whether or not you are in a place to listen to someone else talk about their weight and personal journey to accepting their body. This information is shared simply to offer a perspective that might be beneficial in helping you come to accept your own body, a concept that I know many, many women, especially mothers, deal with on a daily basis.

So welcome to being human and welcome to being a woman. So with that, let's really dig in. Several weeks ago, my son really wanted to make banana bread. Now, in this house, we only use one recipe for banana bread. And it's written on a yellow piece of paper in the shape of the letter S. Because when I was in college and seeking that comfort food, I called my mom for her banana bread recipe and wrote it down.

On the first scrap of paper I could find, which just so happened to be my roommate Sarah's letter S. Notepad that yellow S is still hanging on some 20 years later. And when I'm digging for the recipe in my unruly stack of printed and handwritten recipes, I know all I need to do is find that yellow paper and we'll be one step closer to one of my favorite forms of comfort food. So we found the recipe, and my son started pulling out all the ingredients he would need to make it. And because we all have some degree of add in our family, it was taking some time to find everything. And I was starting to act a little crazy because I could have had the ingredients mixed, poured in the pans, and placed in the oven in the time that it took him to pull the first couple of ingredients.

So somewhere along the way, he decided he really wanted to make apple pie. Now, this was just too much for me. We have made apple pie maybe once in this family, and I'm sure it was good. But we were not about to explore that recipe in creation that day. So I told him, trust me, you have all the ingredients ready for the most delicious and perfect banana bread.

Please just stay the course and use them to make banana bread. I know apple pie sounds really appetizing right now, but with the ingredients you have, you will make something amazing. And that analogy did not fall flat on me. Suddenly, I realized, wait a minute. How many times do we set about to create something of ourselves? And the minute the process gets a little wobbly and seemingly difficult, we do an about face and say, wait a minute.

I think I want this over here instead. Now, I believe in a loving Heavenly Father who wants nothing but the most amazing things for you and me. Way more amazing than we will ever dream up. And I believe that he is amazingly patient with us as we seek to develop ourselves into what he sees as our divine capacity. And it was at this moment that I kind of wondered what it was like to be him watching me as I set out to develop my talents.

And in that moment I pictured him saying, if you will just trust me, I have given you all of the ingredients you need to make the most amazing version of yourself. I know that it's easy to be distracted by what others are doing and what society says you should be, but just please trust me. You are banana bread, not apple pie. If you will use the ingredients you have, you will be the best banana bread you could ever dream of.

But if you use the ingredients you have and attempt to make yourself into apple pie, it's just not going to work. But you choose, do you want to be banana bread or apple pie? Now, banana bread and apple pie are going to represent different things for me versus what they might represent for you. But I want you to ponder on that as you seek to develop and improve yourself. Are you becoming the best version of the talents you have? Or are you trying to mold your talents into something that looks pretty cool but isn't quite right for what you've been given? Now, this is where the numbers come into play.

You've heard me talk about this before, but several years ago I changed the way I was eating and found that certain foods were having a negative impact on my health. Now, all growing up, I considered myself to be larger than all of my friends who were stick skinny. They were more average in height and they didn't require size large clothes. In high school, I weighed 148 pounds and in my senior year I remember being so excited.

When I finally dropped below 140 to 138, it was the lowest weight that I can remember and I loved how I looked. Now, the next weight I remember being was 153 pounds. At the time that I got married, I was 22 and I was more plump than my friends. But in the coming years, my weight would fluctuate with each pregnancy and each time I would gain 50 pounds almost to the dot.

And sometimes I would lose it before getting pregnant again. And then I'd typically end up in the upper 140s or lower 150s before my next pregnancy. Now, when I started my journey of discovering what foods work for me and which ones don't work for me and what my food protocol should be, I started losing weight as I dialed in on how my body operates. And with time and knowledge and specific choices and being deliberate about what I was working towards, I was able to kiss the eventually, the 140s goodbye and I found myself in the land of the 130s. My head was clearer than it had been in years. And I was having fun playing with new clothes and dressing my body at this new weight. And because I'm a little bit competitive with myself, I pushed myself to release an even 30 pounds and found myself at 132 pounds for the first time that I could ever remember. I was in a good place and I was jamming. That was 2018, and I maintained that weight for a year. I think it was a little bit longer than that. In time, I loosened up on my food decisions, and unrelated to that, I experienced some health circumstances that required surgery.

And then with more time, my weight began to go up a pound here or there, and then 2020 hit. One of our children needed more of my full time attention, and the aftermath of my surgery changed how I felt on a daily basis. I never deviated too far from my original food protocol, but because it had been pretty dialed in, the deviations showed up on the scale.

Every now and then I would try to dial back in, but I found that I didn't want to dedicate that much mental energy to my food protocol, and I accepted a more relaxed protocol. I stopped weighing myself and found other areas of my life to focus my attention on. Naturally, this worked for me some days, and then other days I longed for what I once had, but continued to work on my self love and acceptance, no matter my size. Well, recently I decided that certain areas of my life had calmed down enough that I could again dial in on my protocol, clean up the areas where I'd become laxed, and I weighed myself for the first time in a very long time.

I was 153.6 pounds. And so I decided to make some changes, but did not give my full dedication to the changes. Then I, of course, experienced more health issues unrelated to that, and I started to wonder if I could be more dedicated to eating the way I know my body responds well to. So as a starting point, I weighed myself again and noted that I had gone up to 158 pounds. This was the personal moment where I decided to resume 100% and put in the energy required to manage my thoughts regarding my protocol and dedication to it.

One week after following my food protocol to the T, I weighed myself on the designated day and found that I had dropped five pounds and was again 153.6 pounds. I also felt more relaxed in my clothes and I was starting to see myself in a new light, not because of what the scale said, but because what I was making those numbers on the scale mean, along with what I was making my dedication to my protocol mean. So I continued to follow my protocol, and again, one week later, I weighed myself and the scale showed 153.6 pounds, not even 1oz different from the week before.

Now, I had mentally prepared myself for all of this and the mental chatter that would come up during this resume and desire to follow my protocol more carefully. I knew that the scale wouldn't always show change and that it was going to fluctuate and that it wasn't just about what was on the scale, but it was that 153.6 number that stuck with me and caused me to ponder. I had been 153 pounds in college. I was 153 when I got married, and now here I was back at 153.6.

It was like my body felt most at home with 153 pounds. And that's when the AHA moment hit. And I asked myself, what if I've been given the 153.6 pound version of the female body? What if for this body of mine to operate to its fullest, it has to weigh 153.6 pounds? What if being physically and mentally fit requires my body to weigh 153.6 pounds? What if my food protocol has to be a general version right now because I need to use my mental energy towards the creation of other things, like maybe a podcast, a magazine, a coaching business, a relationship with my husband and our household of teenage boys? What if my body is exactly the size it needs to be to get me to where I want to be? What if my body is operating as banana bread status and all this time I've been trying to make it into apple pie with the banana bread ingredients? And here's another analogy that came to mind when I had this epiphany.

What if my body were a Tesla and I had actually been fueling it with diesel and then wondering why it wasn't functioning to its capability? When I started loving my body for what it was, the 153.6 model, not the 132 model or the 168 model, I started loving it more and treating it with more respect. I saw it for what it was. I'll tell you, it is quite the experience to look in the mirror as you hop into the shower and love what you see when for years you have questioned whether or not it could be better.

My name is Lacey Jones. I am 41 years old and I love my 153.6 body. My body that has carried me to college, created six pregnancies and birthed five large babies, sustained me through dark hours of supporting hurting loved ones, recovered from surgery, and supports me as I build and create resources for our family and many others.

At times I will forget that my body is beautiful and I will long for my apple pie body. But just for today, I will find joy in my banana bread body. So friends, my questions for you this week are number one what version of the human body do you currently have? Number two how do you feel about the way you're treating it? Number three are you in a place where you can love and accept today's version of your physical body? Or do you need a little bit of help to get there.

You know that I'm here for you. So please, please reach out and schedule your free discovery call, and let's help you create love and acceptance for your banana bread body. And please, please, sign up for the digital subscription of our Raising Confident Mothers Magazine July's issue, which comes out in just a couple of days. That's going to be all about self love and self care, and you're going to love it. I'll put the link below. And I love you. Friends. I'll see you next week.