A Guide to Healthy Living – by Lucy Watson

You are not your weight.

You are not “what you eat”.

You are what you experience, what you feel, what you make, what you do, what you say, how you love.

Eat healthy food, because it is delicious.

Understand your food and what is in it, because unprocessed, real food is a joy.

Exercise because it gets you outside, and you’re experiencing the world, and using your body. And your body is a gift.

Exercise because it will get you up the steps of that castle, or to the top of that cliff, where you can see the ocean.

Add butter, because it makes everything better.

Having a thigh gap does not make you a good person.

Being a good person makes you a good person.

Reaching your ‘goal weight’ is not a goal. Because it is not a destination.

A healthy body is a lifelong journey. And every day is a new chapter.

The happiest you will ever be won’t be when you stand on the scales.

It will be climbing a mountain peak and seeing the sunset.

It will be eating gelato on the banks of Lake Como.

It will be kicking a goal in your football Grand Final.

It will be a birthday feast with friends. And you will eat the cheese.

Being thin will not make you happy.

The time you spend worrying about it could be spent living.

Your body is not your enemy.

It is the only body you will ever have.

It should not be beaten into submission, and starved.

It is your vessel on the journey of life, and the more years you get to spend together, the luckier you are.

So say this with me:

I love my body.

I love all its quirks and lumps and bumps.

I love the freckles and the moles, the lines and the scars.

I love the way it holds the people I love.

The way it carries the things I need.

The way it takes me where I want to go.

And then back home again.

I love my body.

And I look forward to our adventures together.