3 Things You Need to Know About Your Body
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I’m tired of all you women hating on your body! I’m ready for every single one of you to just embrace your body, embrace your real, and realize you’re SO MUCH happier when you do! So no matter where you are on this journey of embracing your real, I have three things I want you to remember about your body.
Here's a sneak peek...
Your body is the only place you’ll ever live in. Whether you like it or not, you can’t get a new body. So love, accept, embrace, move, and nourish the one body you’ll ever get in this life.
You are not on this earth for the sole purpose of losing weight. You are here for so much more, don’t lose sight of that.
Your body will never look the same as anyone else’s. No one was created the same. Each of our bodies are uniquely our own. So stop forcing your body to be something it’s not.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in, let's go.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. So grateful that you are here spending some time with me today, wherever you're tuning in. We have listeners all over the world, and I'm so grateful that you have chosen to tune in today's episode. We are talking about three things you need to know about your body. I am so tired of so many women hating on their bodies. I am ready for every single one of you to just embrace your body, embrace your real, and realize that you're so much happier when you actually do it. But I know, speaking from experience, that that doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of work, a lot of mindset shifts, and a lot of consistency to get there, but I am so proud of how far you've come. But I also know that no matter how far you've come on your journey, you will still have negative thoughts about your body that creep in from time to time. It's normal. So no matter where you are on this journey of embracing a real your real, today I have three things that I want to remind you about your body.
But before I share them, I have to share this super-sweet review. It comes from Brava 428. She says, "Reassurance. This podcast has reassured everything I've doubted, whether it was about myself, my food, my movement, my relationships, just about everything. It's so great to know that I'm not the only one who deals with these things on a daily. Listening to Julie has truly inspired me to be my best self every single day. What's also great about this podcast is that she speaks directly to you. There's literally no noise in the background and nobody trying to talk over her, so I truly feel like I'm having a conversation with her about my life goals. Thank you so much for everything Ms. Julie. Your work is greatly appreciated."
I love that so much. Thank you so much for the review. I read every single one of the reviews. It really does help us out in the podcast. We have audacious goals of reaching millions of women every day to embrace their real, but I can't do it without you. So if you can just share this podcast with a friend or a few friends or some family members, and if you haven't already scooched over to Apple Podcasts, all you got to do is download their app if you have an iPhone or an Apple device, type in embrace your real. Make sure, number one, your hit Subscribe, and two, you can scroll all the way down, click that Rate and Review. It takes less than 30 seconds, and it helps us out so, so much. Okay, so let's dive into today's episode.
The first few things I want you to remember is, number one, your body is the only place that you get to live in. It doesn't matter where you'll live, you'll always be in your body. That's the one true place that you'll always live. So why live hating the one thing that you have to live in your entire life? It doesn't make sense. You get one body, you get one life. Are you living like it? Are you speaking to yourself like it? Are you challenging yourself like it? Are you working towards your goals like it? When you get to the end of your life, you're not going to care about what your body look like, you're going to care about the experience that you had in your body. You're not going to wish you ate less carbs or weighed five less pounds when you were 30. You're going to wish you loved, appreciated, valued, and embraced your body every single second.
You're going to wish you didn't spend so much time hating it, punishing it, and destroying it. You're going to wish you'd let go of your obsession of what your body looked like and were more obsessed about creating the meaningful memories in your body. Whether you currently like it or not, this is your body. You can't get a new one. This is it. But you have the control of how you treat this body. So start treating it the way that it deserves. Honor it with movement, nourish it with what it needs, speak to it like you love it, and give it the enjoyment it desires. This is the one place that you get to live, so why not make it the best place that it can absolutely be.
Number two, you have more to offer this world than just your body. Repeat after me, you are not on this earth for the sole purpose of losing weight or having a six pack or being the leanest. Somewhere, somehow we've lost track of why we are actually here. We wake up and think about weight loss. We go to bed thinking about weight loss or being our leanest. Every time we catch a glimpse of our body in the reflection of a window or a mirror, we think about the weight we need to lose or how much leaner we should be. Every time we're eating, we think about weight loss in mind. We are so consumed by weight loss. Somewhere along the way, we've allowed it to take over our entire lives. This is not why we are here on this earth. I can't really tell you why you are here, that's your purpose, one that God has only given you. But I can tell you that it's not to lose weight.
You are here to bring your own unique energy, perspective, passion, and gifts to this world. If you ask people why they love having you in their lives, none of them are going to say, "Oh, it's because of how much she weighs," or, "Oh, it's because she hardly has any body fat." That is absolutely insane. No one is ever going to say that because no one actually cares about that. You are here on this earth and you are placed in other people's lives for every other reason but weight loss. Remember that. Your gifts, your talents, your passions, all of those things are a combination of why you are here on this earth.
Number three, your body will never look the same as anyone else's. No one was ever created the same. Each of our bodies are uniquely our own. We could all literally eat the exact same things, do the same workouts, and live our lives in the exact same ways, and every single one of our bodies would still be different. I want you to really let that sink in. We could eat the exact same thing, do the same workouts, live the exact same way, and our bodies would still look different. Because they were never designed to look the same, our bodies were designed to be our body, carefully crafted by God. Some people were born with a thigh gap, others were not. And if we try to have one, we would be punishing and destroying our body to get to it.
I'll be honest, for years I fought my body. I waged war on my body. I hated my naturally large thighs. I would spend hours on the elliptical trying to make them leaner. I would avoid heavy lifting just so that they wouldn't get bulky. I would eat less and exercise more in hopes that I could make them smaller. But here's the thing, I was naturally gifted with large thighs. Key word, natural. That's the way I was, that's the way I am, and that's the way I was born. So instead of forcing my body to be something that it's not, I'm just choosing to honor my body with movement, nourish my body with what it needs, and then accept my body for whatever it is after that.
Even if my thighs are big, so what? These are the thighs that God specifically designed for me and my body. How amazing is that? Shouldn't I be thankful for everything he's given me instead of taking it for granted and wishing for something different. Listen up, your body is your own. That is exactly how God created it, and that is exactly how God intended it to be. Stop fighting it. Stop punishing it. Stop forcing it to be anything other than what it is. The moment you start to accept yourself and love yourself for who and whose you are is the moment that you will feel released from the pressure to morph yourself into something you were not designed to be.
I want to leave you with this affirmation that you can say to yourself daily. And if you need to bookmark this, timestamp it, makes sure that you come back to it, and listen to it daily until you truly start believing it. I am uniquely my own. I am worthy of being loved and loving others. I love my beautifully crafted body. I appreciate what my body does for me every day. I choose to walk in purpose daily. I eat foods that make me feel good. I honor my body with movement out of celebration, not punishment. I release negative thoughts or feelings towards myself or my body. I will no longer invest my time in people or things that don't serve me. And every inhale is an acknowledgement of life. And every exhale is a celebration of it. Amen.
I want you to read and reread that affirmation out loud to yourself daily, until you truly start believing it. There is so much truth in this affirmation. And I believe that when you continuously repeat it back to yourself, just like I've talked about in previous episodes, repetition is the mother of skill. So if you're willing to repeat it over and over again, number one, it becomes ingrained in you and to your signaling to your subconscious brain that this is important. It is important that you put these things at the forefront of your mind. Because like I said at the beginning of this episode, it's not if, but when a negative thought comes into your head, it's all about arming yourself and having the tools in your tool belt to combat that negative thought, so that once it comes into your head, you have almost the ammo to allow that negative thought to flow out of your head and flood your mind and your heart and your soul with truth.
So, I'm going to recap the three things that I talked about in this episode. Number one, your body is the only place that you'll ever live. Whether you like it or not, you cannot get a new body, so start loving, accepting, embracing, moving, and nourishing the one body you'll ever get in this life. Number two, you are not on this earth for the sole purpose of losing weight. You are here for so much more. Don't lose sight of that. And number three, your body will never look the same as anyone else's. No one was ever created the same. Each of our bodies are uniquely our own. So I need you to stop forcing your body to be something that it's not.
If you love this episode, I know you will also love seven weight loss truths you need to know. I really dive deep into this podcast episode about that specific topic. I know that this podcast is going to serve you, so I will go ahead and link that in the show notes below. It's episode 111. You can go tune in to that. If you have someone in your life, a girlfriend, a sister, a coworker, someone that you feel would benefit from this episode, I'd just encourage you to share it out. You can post it up on your Instagram story. You can post it up on your Facebook. You can copy the link and send it to them in a text message, whatever you need to do to get this word out. I need you to share this word with other women, because the moment that we can start actually celebrating our bodies and sharing things that spread truth and positivity about our bodies is the moment that we are no longer letting society's ideal dictate our brains. And that's so important.
I love you so much. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for your support. I appreciate you, and I will talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the 'gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter, yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me, it means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real, because you're worth it.