There will be no ‘love your body’ quotes in this post… Instead, you will read a real-life example that will help you tremendously so make sure to read until the end. With this method or rather a life hack, I will show you how to love your body and lose weight FAST when applied properly!
How to love your body
Imagine walking through a forest. Trees growing left and right, small trees, big trees. Branches broken here and there, funky-looking ones. You’ll never find yourself judging them. It is so obvious to us that each tree is meant to be different.
That is what makes nature beautiful and ever-surprising. And yet when it comes to humans, we fail to see this.
And I don’t mean judging others, most of the time we’re too busy stuck inside our head to truly see others.
Sometimes, if we’re in a small space like a waiting line at the post office or the doctor’s, we find ourselves thinking: ‘the fat lady’, ‘that old guy’ or ‘that girl in a skimpy tank top, why don’t I have abs like that?!’.
This last thought is the hardest to shake off with our comparing mind, our ever-present joy-stealer. And it is that nasty, self-diminishing voice in our head that I’d like to address.
I write about the desperate desire to be thinner because I was there. I lived in that mindset for over two decades and I believe I am one of many women who have struggled with their weight & hence with their self-love.
But don’t get me wrong, this destructive thought pattern is not limited to women, and not limited to the classic ‘I’m too fat’ thinking. It could be ‘I’m too thin’, I’m too short, I have horrible skin, my boobs are sagging. Only you know which toxic thoughts you are poisoning your life with.
Struggling to love my body
I spend my entire life trying to become smaller. Altho at 5 feet or 153 cm, one would think I was small enough?! I spend so much of my time obsessing about my weight that I swear if I put that time to better use I could have become the president of my country or done something useful for humanity.
Engaged in cycles of food restriction and bingeing I was never happy with the way I looked. Hell, I was never happy, period. As a result, I had put my entire life on hold until that fantasy time when all problems were going to disappear once I was thin.
As soon as I lose those 20 pounds, I’ll start dating, I will start making youtube videos, I will buy myself new clothes.
Anyway you get the idea, everything was on hold because of the ‘as soon as’ pause button and as a result, NOTHING was happening in my life.
I was a prisoner in my body or rather a prisoner of my mind. So now, how did I overcome this?
How do you appreciate your body?
First step.
I wrote on a post-it note ‘I like myself today’ and stuck it on my mirror where I would read it numerous times each day. Went with ‘today’ as it seemed doable to hold that thought just for a day.
I wrote ‘like’ rather than ‘love’ as my self-esteem was so low that I knew reading ‘I love myself’ on low days would probably send me into spasms of sarcastic laughter.
Step two.
I bought a yearly membership at a local bikram yoga studio next to my place and felt obliged to show up there every day in order not to waste the huge amount I paid for my membership.
The word ‘yoga’ means the union of the body and soul. And that is exactly what yoga did to me: it reconnected me with my own body. At first, I felt too fat & clumsy to do yoga altogether, but over time, I watched my body being more flexible and slowly being able to go deeper and deeper into the yoga poses, inch by inch.
“Yoga is the game of millimetres” – my teacher would say.
I also stopped overeating, at least in the hours before class, as it felt uncomfortable to do yoga on a full/bloated stomach.
For the first time in my life I was seeing my body as a vehicle that allows me to do awesome things and how could I be hating on my vehicle if it runs smoother and smoother by the day?!
Not to mention it’s the only one I’ll ever have, so if I’m going to have fun, I’d better start taking care of it!
This came as a revelation: it’s not about the body you have, it’s about what you DO WITH IT.
Would you rather…
Would you rather be a couch potato with no love life watching tv series late into the night just because you think you have an extra 20 pounds?!
Or would you rather own the body you have, thunder thighs, loose belly, saggy tits n’all, and go traveling the world, dancing wildly and following your desire into the arms of a hot new lover?
Think about Kim Kardashian. I’m not sure if you remember how Kim first got into the spotlight.
She partied with Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie who were back then THE celebrities but who were also edging into the scary-thin territory competing for the tabloids’ attention of who is currently the thinnest.
And then comes Kim, with her big behind and full figure. Did she succumb to the then-fashionable model of having a skinny ass? Absolutely not. She knew she looked very different from what was trending and she owned it.
In fact, she made it her trademark. Branding her curvy look and becoming one of the most influential women on the planet.
Why is loving your body Important?
I never had the chance to watch her show but I’ve read that the fact that Kim and all her sisters breastfed and were ok with showing boob-leaks on camera is said to have done more for the breastfeeding movement than any other campaign.
Whether you like Kim Kardashian or not is not the subject of this post. Nor am I suggesting she becomes our role model. I only use her as an example as we all know who she is and sometimes someone else’s personal story puts things into perspective.
Now let’s entertain an opposite scenario: while Paris & Nicole party, Kim sits at home for years on end. Eating away on her couch in her oversized sweatpants obsessing about the 20 pounds she just can’t seem to shake and how she’ll never fit into size zero skinny jeans.
Doesn’t seem like a happy life, does it? So if you don’t want that for Kim, why would you bring the same misery upon yourself?!
How to love your body while losing weight
Back to me. I was doing the raw food diet for over a year at that point but when I implemented yoga I seemed to have reached new heights in my well-being. I’ve been on the raw food diet ever since (8 years now), the biggest blessing in my life, more on that later.
One day I looked at that post-it note on my mirror and laughed out loud. ‘I don’t like myself, I LOVE myself!’
The mental strength from pushing myself to stay in the yoga poses long after they’ve stopped being comfortable gave me the confidence to handle the discomfort in other areas of life.
Especially the mental discomfort of making unpopular ‘selfish’ decisions, namely the fact that I closed my architecture company, rented out my apartment, gave my car to my parents, and left on a one-way ticket to Bali. I took the leap even though everyone was telling me I was crazy.
And a funny thing happened. Once I was in Bali because I was following my highest excitement and no longer doing the job that doesn’t excite me, the last 15 pounds just melted away in a couple of months without me even noticing it.
Finally, I was at my ‘ideal weight’, the one I strived for 20 years and you know what? IT DIDN’T EVEN MATTER.
The idea that being thinner was gonna make me happy turned out to be a complete mind-fuck. And because I was authentically happy, it felt like I had become a people magnet. And in a few months’ time, I met Simon, the love of my life.
What does it mean to love your body
So what comes first? Do you have to lose excess weight to be happy? Or do you have to be happy first in order to lose weight effortlessly?
Well if being thin was the guarantee of everlasting happiness, then those suffering from anorexia would be the happiest people ever. But having been there myself I can tell you anorexia is a dark miserable place you don’t want to visit.
This means it’s the other way round. Happiness has to proceed with sustainable weight loss. You have to love yourself FIRST, no matter what shape you are currently in.
And the only way to get happy is to start doing all those things that you’ve been putting off. Start dancing, dress yourself in clothes that aren’t meant to hide you. Go travel, dare to love when there are no guarantees.
Think of your body as a vehicle to have as much fun on this planet as is humanly possible. Think about what would you do if you only had 6 months to live and go do it NOW.
Start living your dream life
This is a big one. Don’t wait to pursue your dreams till you are thin or till you retire. Remember, you never know how much life left you’ve still got on this planet.
I wrote a whole post on why it is so hard to follow your dreams. Go read it next!
Hope this helps. I know I am not alone in this: 60% of American women & 75% of American men are obese or overweight and with social media pushing the Instagram-perfect-body, I know it is causing many people to completely disconnect with their own bodies.
We have to heal the mind first, otherwise, no quick fix will bring sustainable effects.
To illustrate this post, I’ve chosen pictures of me at different stages in my life.
I am the same ‘tree’ just in different seasons.
The raw food diet
The best diet to lose weight fast and love your body is the raw food diet. I lost 70 pounds with ease and without restrictingcalories at all.
Simon, my partner, and I have eaten a raw food diet for a combined 14 years now and have always been at the same weight ever since we went through the initial detox weight loss phase.
For me, a huge part of starting to love my body was eating raw foods.
After out-of-control eating for 21+ years, it has been a life-changing experience to find my food freedom and finally establish a healthy relationship with food.
If you’re curious what raw foods can do for you, read our FREE ebook ‘How To Overcome Emotional Eating’.
The strategies I discuss in the book will work for you:
- Because they are designed to work for anyone. No matter what kind of diet you are currently on.
- Because we KNOW that you can succeed even if you’re at the end of the road.
THE best part?
It’s totally FREE.
Why?
Because when you’re in the perpetual loop of emotional eating, life is hard enough as it is. Because everyone deserves to heal!
Read this life changing book, right now. Click here to get instant access!
Warm hugs,
Tina
