The Battle of the Scales

One of the glorious things about pregnancy--having a baby.  One of the frustrating things about pregnancy--weight gain that takes forever to go away.  Now, I know women who have had a baby and a week later can not only get their pre-pregnancy jeans over their thighs, but can button them too. Or the women who claim that nursing made their body smokin' hot. I'm sure there is complete truth in your statements, but that hasn't been my experience.

Then there are those who gained the perfect amount of pounds suggested by their doctor. Again not my experience.  With Sweet Pea, my oldest, I had preeclampsia.  One of the symptoms is excessive weight gain (usually due to the fact that you are swollen up to your eyeballs--literally).  So, I had 75 pounds to shed.

Not so pretty, right.

Now with our most recent addition, Sunshine. I was doing great until 29 weeks when I had to go on bed rest to control the preterm labor.  Two months on bed rest=weight gain. So, here we go again, only the number is not as daunting: 50 pounds.

But then I stop myself. Is this really the way I should be thinking about this? Is obsessing over the right number going to do anything for me except frustrate or depress me?  What kind of a message am I sending to my girls?  The culture we live in does enough to twist a girl's thinking to believe she is the sum of the number on the scale and the size of her jeans.  

There are numerous scales to which they can learn to measure their worth: the bathroom scale, the peer popularity scale, the academic scale, the athletic scale... They will, no doubt, learn to measure their worth by something.  The questions is what.  And the person who will influence that the most--you guessed it--Mama. If they are going to learn healthy attitudes about their body, it starts with me. 

I need to display some attitudes in my own life before it can be caught by them.

I'm sure there are other noteworthy attitudes, but I need to take this one step at a time.  Here are two important ones.

1. Your body is the temple, the dwelling place of the living God.  His spirit lives within you. You were bought with a price. Honor God with your body. (My paraphrase of 1 Cor. 6:19-20).  

Now I know that in context Paul is speaking to the church of Corinth about sexual immorality, but I do not think it is a stretch to apply these verses in regard to our health.  I want my girls to be healthy. That means taking care of the "temple" God has given us by eating right, exercising, and getting rest.  

2. Renew your mind.  (Several verses touch on this like Rom. 12:2, Phil. 4:8 to name a few).  So much emphasis around us tells us to focus on the exterior.  Focus on your body.  Just browse the magazine covers at the store.  At least one article will address the state of your figure. And the skinny airbrushed celeb will have you wishing you looked as good as she post-baby.

If am going to make health my goal, then it will take some renewing of my mind.  Understand that my worth or beauty comes not from the outside, but from within.  I want my girls to measure their worth, not by a bathroom scale, or anything else so fleeting.  I want them to find worth in knowing that they are a child of God.  That scale is the only one that matters, the only one that lasts.

What about you?  Where do you stand?  What attitudes are your kids catching from you? Are you pursuing health over a size number?  Are you instilling in your girls that "a woman who fears The Lord is to be praised"? (Prov. 31:30).  Do you have anything to add to my short list?  Share with me.