Healthy Lifestyle = Worship?

“You’re fat” a neighborhood boy told me as we were standing at the bus stop. He wasn’t even a friend, just an acquaintance, but I’ve never forgotten that day. I was ten, and the words sunk in deeply...I somehow didn’t measure up.
To this day, I view that morning at the bus stop as a life-changing one. It was when my eyes were opened to world around me.
In this world girls must live on carrots and celery, exercise 24-7, and always have themselves perfectly put together from head to toe. In this world, I never quite measure up.
I will never be a size two, I really don’t enjoy putting on makeup, and I regularly go six months between haircuts.
There have been seasons in my life when I was content with how I look—this has not been one of them.
When my husband proposed to me, images of me in a white satin gown danced through my head, and a new health obsession was born. The next 7 months were hectic ones as I fought to lose weight, but only seemed to gain. It seemed like the stress of getting married wasn’t my friend.
As hard as I tried to fit into my Barbie image, it was a no go.
But then I stumbled across something recently. I read an entry in a blog by Christian author and speaker Lysa Terkeurst. In her blog she wrote, “My focus has got to be on eating healthy as an act of worship to God not the numbers on the scale.”
What a concept. I’d never thought about it this way. I’d always wondered where the balance was between not caring about food and exercise and obsessing over it. I’ve struggled for years to find a middle ground, and here it is, worship.
When I try my best to eat healthy and exercise my body, I am worshiping God. I am keeping the body he created healthy and whole. I am taking steps to ensure that I can go and do anything the Lord plans for me, all by taking care of my body.
This is a new concept for me, so I’m not exactly sure how this will play out in the long run, but I do know it’s a start.
What do you think healthy lifestyle worship looks like? How could you integrate this concept into your own life?