Your car, your body

Your body gets you to places. Your strong legs keep you walking - even running when necessary. Your strong heart pumps blood night and day to keep you alive. Your liver metabolizes substances and excretes toxic chemicals through your kidneys. Your lungs supply the much-needed oxygen. Your arms lift up heavy things, and your hands write stories or type assignments. Your eyes see the beautiful things around you, and your ears heart the glorious sounds of nature. Your lips allow you to communicate with others, and your nose helps you smell the sweet scents of nature. Your stomach digests the food that you eat, and your intestines do the same.

With an eating disorder, nearly all of this is impaired. Your muscles become weak and it becomes harder to move, run, or exercise. Your heart becomes weak and it is harder to pump blood effectively. Your brain cannot concentrate because it does not have enough nutrition; it thus becomes harder to concentrate. Your organs are lacking the nutrition that they need, so they shrink and cannot do their jobs. Your whole body slows down because it does not have what it needs - food. And without this food, your body cannot function.

The analogy of our bodies as cars may be overused, but it is certainly relevant. If your body was a car, it would need fuel or gas. Without this, it would slow down. You cannot say that it will 'survive' and drive you to places without gas - it just will not. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself, the car will simply NOT RUN without the gas. You can try to believe that you can make it go, but it will not. As the car loses gas, it becomes less and less functional. It cannot do its job properly. It will eventually crash, leaving you stranded nowhere. And you will have to call a mechanic to get it working. But if you do not give it enough fuel, no mechanic will be of use. Because the thing it needs is GAS. And without this, it will not return to doing its normal job - ever.

 It is like the body. Give it food, it will run. It will do its job. Your organs will be happy and will function. Take away some food, and it may appear to be functioning for a while. But continue to do so and you will see that your body is failing you. It cannot go long without food. Try as you might, you cannot survive without it. Your body NEEDS food, no matter what you think. Give it food, and it will do what it has to do. Take away the fuel (food) and you are stranded somewhere - unable to function and go on with life.

We would never leave our cars empty without gas, because then they would not function. So why are our bodies any different? No fuel = no operating car = no function. No food = no energy = no functioning body. 

It may be difficult for those struggling with ED to wrap their heads around this - that food is NECESSARY. Something that should be remembered, however, is that the body can only compensate for little food intake for some time. After a while, it will simply stop functioning. That is why it needs fuel. And that fuel, dear readers, is food. And what a tasty and fine fuel it is!

Remember:  without a functioning car, we cannot get anywhere nor do anything. So without a functioning body, we also cannot do anything. It's time to treat our bodies like our cars - give them the fuel they need, give them the maintenance that they need, and be willing to spend money on them when needed. It is time that we take steps to ensure that our bodies are not harmed - just like we do not want our cars scratched or broken. Treat your body like your car - it deserves it.