There’s a lot of fat-shaming and most of it comes from those who gained weight and is about themselves. Hating how you look and thinking desparaging remarks about yourself isn’t the answer. In fact, in some cases, hating yourself only leads to further weight gain. You lower your self-esteem even further, making you feel like you don’t deserve any better. In order to really make progress when it comes to fitness, you need to make a commitment to self-love and affirmation.
Self-love does not mean you ignore a problem.
Self-love doesn’t mean you don’t have self-awareness and understand that excess pounds and lack of fitness can lead to some serious health issues. In fact, it actually drives you toward making the changes to reverse the trend and live a healthier lifestyle, because you deserve it. If you have a set back, you forgive yourself and get back on track. Self-hate does quite the opposite. If you don’t lose the weight you wanted to lose, you start that mental thrashing and then turn to what makes you feel better, which is often comfort food.
Self-hate destroys your self-image and makes you believe you don’t deserve anything.
I’ve seen people come in so down on themselves that they don’t even eat healthy, feeling they don’t deserve anything but junk food. Good healthy food should be reserved for someone with more restraint. You may have felt that way yourself. When you start working on liking yourself, you’ll find reasons that you should be healthy and do what it takes to become more fit. You’ll notice how much easier it is when you consider healthy food part of the way to take care of yourself and know you deserve that type of care.
Consider your weight loss a project and eliminate the emotion.
You are not your weight, so why do you allow it to control your emotions and feelings about yourself? Losing weight and getting fit is like painting a house that you love, which is well built and otherwise in good shape, but hasn’t had the walls cleaned or painted for a long, long time. You don’t hate the house, you love it and want it to look great again. You simply set a goal of first washing the walls and then room by room paint them. It will take a while but before you know it, the house will look like new again. Getting fit and losing weight should evoke the same emotion as painting that house. You still love yourself, but you want to look and feel better and weight loss can do it.
- You’re more than just your body, you’re a unique individual with many different skills and positives. However, if your body isn’t healthy or you have no energy, you won’t be able to share those with the world.
- When you set goals to lose weight, your focus shifts from your body to the actual goal. It eliminates much of the emotional charge that often comes with weight loss.
- Start being happy now. Don’t ever say that you’ll be happy, motivated or more self-loving when you lose weight. If you’re unhappy, find the cause. In most cases, it’s not the weight, but something more. Once you solve that, you’ll find weight loss is easier.
- Remember that weight loss and fitness is always about more than just looking good. It helps you stay healthier, have more energy and reduce the risk of serious illnesses or conditions.