Are you struggling with feeling out of control around food, always worried about your weight? Are you caught up in thinking that your happiness and self-worth is determined by the number on the scale or the size of your clothing label?
Are you struggling with feeling out of control around food, always worried about your weight? Are you caught up in thinking that your happiness and self-worth are determined by the number on the scale or the size of your clothing label?
If you’re feeling frustrated and hopeless, upset with your body, there’s a good chance that somewhere along the way you’ve learned to think of your body as not good enough. Maybe you’ve spent years comparing yourself to other women and feeling like you don’t measure up or perhaps like many of my clients you stood by and watched other family members being judged and criticized for their weight and it made you believe that if you were fat or weighed more than other people, that meant that you were less desirable, less lovable, less intelligent and just less in general. Don’t buy what they’re selling. It’s not true.
It’s pretty sad that for such strong accomplished, capable women, we often make the mistake of believing that our sense of value is determined by the size and shape of our bodies. I’m here to tell you that’s a big mistake to let other people’s opinions dictate your truth.
I’m willing to bet that years of dieting has fooled you into thinking that something is wrong with you. That’s a lpack of lies designed to prey and profit on your insecurities.
You have qualities like intelligence, warmth, empathy, personality, creativity, a sense of humor, compassion, energy, ambition, plus a huge capacity to love and be loved. It’s all there, but you don’t really see it. Do you?
Two things to consider here, your body image and self esteem. Body image is the picture of the size and shape of your body that you see in your mind’s eye. It plays a huge part in how you think and feel about yourself as a person because your body is the first thing others see when they look at you and if you don’t feel good about your body, you won’t have much of an inclination to treat yourself with self-respect.
The casualty in this body war is your self-esteem.
Self-esteem is your level of confidence and satisfaction based on how you think about yourself. If we believe that thin is in and curvy is out, and our bodies are ugly and misshapen, then we won’t have a whole heck of a lot of confidence to go around.
When I was a kid, I used to love playing Bingo with my Grammie and Grandpa. We used to play for jelly beans. I love jelly beans. Don’t you? My special favorites were and still are the orange and yellow ones. Love them.
Let’s play a game for a moment and I’d like you to imagine you have a handful of jelly beans. Let’s say that for each jelly bean you’re holding, it represents a positive memory from your past which when added up, represents your self esteem or how much you value yourself. If you had 100 jelly beans, you’d probably feel pretty good. Maybe you’d eat some, maybe you’d share a few, and save some for later.
But if you knew that your friend had 1000 jelly beans, all of a sudden you wouldn’t feel as generous and willing to part with your precious beans. You’d compare what you have to what she has and you’d come up a few hundred jelly beans short. You wouldn’t feel so good about yourself anymore. Would you? Why? Because you’d probably think that she has something that you don’t and she does; more jelly beans, or as the case may be more confidence. Maybe she’s more comfortable in whatever size body she has.
The truth is we’re all different. We can’t all have the beans or the body of a Twiggy, Cher or Tyra. Yet because we’re looking at our bodies and comparing them to every other woman out there, our perspective gets distorted and we lose sight of who we are beyond the box. Are you ready to step out of the diet box? Are you ready to make the most of what you have and put an end to the cycle of guilt and deprivation?
No More Dieting for Me
Speaking as a gal whose been a compulsive eater for more than 33 years, I’ve learned that diets are the enemy because we will always want what we believe we can’t have. It was only when I made the decision to say goodbye to dieting that my appetite finally began to get smaller and I was able to tune into my body and eat in line with my hunger. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m still a work in progress, moving through my own recovery and dealing with my issues so I’ve still got a ways to go before I reach the place where my body feels healthiest, but when I really made the decision to stop letting food control me, that’s when I started to come to grips with my hips and make friends with my curvy body. This is me now. My packaging may change, but I like the gal inside so much more than I ever did when I was dieting. Now that I’m making the most of my jelly beans, I don’t resent others for having theirs. I’m not waiting anymore for my life to begin. I’m sinking my teeth in and inviting you to join me to do the same.
Some things will probably never change. Believe me. I’ll still be the gal in the bakery parking lot, taking full advantage of the warm bread or pastry, but the more mundane impulses that I used to always give in to when I was dieting are meaningless to me, because the novelty has long worn off. It’s no biggie to have chocolate, snack cakes, ice cream, home made pie or fresh oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the house, because I often do. And since I have all these things around, I don’t really want them as much as I used to, and they’ll often go uneaten and I’ll end up tossing them to the birds. I never thought that I could feel this way around food, but I do, and I want to shout it from the rooftops, because you deserve to enjoy this same type of peace and calm. Imagine the cries and shrieks of food will stop! How would your life change if you could feel safe around what you now consider temptation and just simply eat what you want? Would you like to learn how to feel safe around all foods? I’m happy to share more with you.
If you’d like to explore this whole idea of taking a non diet approach to weight control further, I’d like to invite you to join my new group on FB, 30 Days to Lovin’ the Skin You’re In. There in the company of other women you’ll get support and tips to make peace with food and friends with your body. Click the image below to learn more or to join:
