Blogpost: You Look Marvelous!

You have not changed a bit! Does that mean you still look good or you have looked bad for a long time? My mother once said “it is better to look good than to feel good” She still views that as fairly accurate. Then again at 85, she still feels and looks good. We all “size” each other up in one way or another. What does the competition look like? How do I compare? Who is the competiton anyway? How do our assessments change over the years? It is not an accident, but perhaps a blessing that our close vision goes over time.

What about our physiologic appearance. Can you hide it? Is it important? How do you assess physiologic aging? Do you look at the group you associate with? What do other people look like in the mall or a restaurant? How do those people move? Do you compare number of prescriptions or procedures? Or do you just try not to think about it because there is nothing to be done. We try to keep up the outside more than the inside, for the most part. Most advertisements are aimed at cures for the outward appearance more so than the functional body. Hormones are the exception, but fixing low T and low E has never turned back the physcologic clock.

Physiologic maintance or how we maintain our working parts, so to speak, takes more time than the exterior appearance. The extra work and the fact that we don’t see our efforts readily gives this part of body maintanence a back seat. So our our working parts continue to rust and deteriorate for a long time sight unseen until there is a problem. Perhaps the biggest disconnect is the role that nutrition plays in either maintaining or eroding those parts. Our bodies are alive and millions of chemical processes are going on at all times to try and repair DNA and cellular function. Our cells breakdown and rebuild continuously. To think that taking a supplement will go exactly to the spot of need and interfere only in that area is obserd. However, it is done by millions in hope that the magic pill will rebort the troubled system. Our body is very capable of rebuilding and maintaining itself if given time and a few natural supplies.

Give your body time and it will heal. We all want more but it is very difficult to manage. We hurry and rush and time still passes too quickly. We feel the sense of urgency and push harder wanting things faster and quicker. Perhaps we could slow things down as the child’s merry go round slows if no one is pushing it to spin. When we get a cold or an injury, we want it fixed now. Football players are taken to surgery that evening and screws and plates are placed to fix the broken or torn bones or tendons immediately so they can resume play. No one talks of the long term consequenses of those things 20 or 30 years down the road. We willing swallow potent antibiotics immediately for illness than may not even be affected by them that will clear if given time. Over 75% of pneumonias will cure with conservative care in those that are otherwise healthy. We take medicines to help digest food that we were not meant to eat in the first place, because it makes the discomfort go away quick.

Imagine the best version of you. That is your standard. What are the best foods to get you the most nutrients to allow your body to heal itself and thrive. Move your body and get outside when possible. You will build more muscle and neurons if you do an exercise that you enjoy while interacting with others. Push out of your comfort zone to stretch your body and mind. And take time. Time for yourself. Time to enjoy each day. Time to let the merry go round slow so that you can appreciate the beauty around you. May you look marvelous on the inside as well as the outside!