For a few years, I followed a very rigid food plan and became very
thin—but I couldn’t see it. The rigid food plan
was a tool I had used to “hate myself thin”, so the mirror
continued to only show my flaws, my shortcomings, and my
self-hate. I had to ditch the tight food plan,
regain some weight, and start practicing deep self-acceptance,
in that now-larger body, before I found any internal
peace.
Self-acceptance is one of the three vital keys to weight loss and permanent change. Why? Because until you have self-acceptance, every attempt at weight loss will be seen by your psyche as another reinforcement that you are wrong, and bad, and need to change. But with self-acceptance, we change freely, motivated by the knowledge that we deserve better and better lives, and can happily achieve them.
So how can you practice—especially when you’re not happy in your current shape? Let’s start with the “Don’ts”:
- Don’t expect self-acceptance to magically appear on your doorstep one day, like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse people, leaving you gasping for joy in your bathrobe and curlers. It takes daily practice until it becomes a habit.
- Don’t cling to the idea that self-acceptance will flood your veins the minute the scale hits your goal weight. I have never met a single person for whom this happened. If you can’t create it now, you won’t have it then. I promise.
- Don’t worry if you don’t believe yourself when you first practice self-acceptance. You will roll your eyes and feel like a fool. Luckily, self-acceptance can be practiced alone, in your own head, so no one has to know but you.
Keep clicking back! In the next few days, you’ll learn powerful exercises to begin creating self-acceptance TODAY (even if you’re sure it’s impossible!).
