
Body acceptance is a challenge it’s real… Body acceptance has been a challenge for me for 25+ years.
I’ve lost and gained weight my whole life always chasing body confidence and every time, I failed to understand something really important
Every spring, I used to recommit myself to a new diet and/or lifestyle. What I was seeking in weight loss was already available for me to grab. It was in me and I just didn’t know it.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Every time I engaged in a new diet: paleo, keto, low calories… it didn’t matter which one since my intention was to fix myself so that I would finally be ok and accept my body.
I need to lose weight to accept my body
I thought a diet would help me be confident enough to find love, be acceptable enough to wear any clothes I wanted, be thin enough so that I could blend in.
I’ve lost and gained weight my whole life and every time, I failed to understand something really important.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Seeking the answer fuelled nearly 30 years of my life. I was successful in most area of my life: career, finances, friendship… but I considered myself a failure when it came to my body (which for me meant my weight which meant food).
My life goal wasn’t to lose weight… weight loss was a tool to get to my end goal. What I really wanted the most was just to be normal and not have to worry about what I looked like and what “people” thought of me. I deeply desired to become “normal”… I wanted to blend in.
Why the heck was I able to be successful with everything else and not with my body?
Today I know why…. it was right there in front of me but invisible to my eyes.
The body confidence I was seeking wasn’t in a thinner body. Confidence was in acceptance. Confidence was in being at peace. Confidence was in my mind.
The truth is there is has many “thin body” women that aren’t confident in their “thin” body that there is “big body” who aren’t confident in their body. Look around you… if confidence came as a result of body weight then all “thin bodied” women would be confident and we all know this isn’t the case.
but I need to lose weight to be healthy
that was my come back to ” body confidence isn’t the outcome of body weight”.
To be healthy your body weight must be in the “normal” BMI range. That was my core belief since I can remember and this core belief was validated through my formal education in nutrition. That’s also the core pillar of Diet Culture and I know many us believe this too… right?
I strived hard, hustled and spent a whole lot of time and money figuring out how to be healthy.
The truth you and I can chase health at any size. Look around you… you and I have life long thin people around us who been diagnosed with health conditions at the same rate as “overweight” people. Diet Culture fuel on our fear of weight to sale us $67 billions of product in 2017. If dieting was the solution would we have “an obesity epidemic”? Did I make my point yet?
As my level of health knowledge evolved the purpose of my hustle change to: “be healthy and you’ll release the weight” because a healthy body doesn’t hold on to weight. That’s the core of Wellness Diet.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The truth is becoming healthy doesn’t mean you’ll release the weight. There is little something call “Set Point” that Diet Culture forget to mention when making the promise that a healthy body will release unnecessary weight. That’s what is called the “Wellness Diet”. That’s just another form of dieting beliefs aka Diet Culture.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I’m healthier today than when I was 50 lbs lighter. I’m healthier today than when I consumed 20+ supplements a day. I’m healthier today than when I was Keto, Paleo or Fasting. How can this be? I focus my attention on all the other health factors that impact health and the most important being stress and non-acceptance of my body was very stressful.⠀⠀⠀
Finding Body Acceptance
Body acceptance is buried below years of saying to yourself “I’m not good enough and I need to work harder!”
Body acceptance is hidden behind “What the heck is wrong with my body?”.
Body acceptance that we are seeking thru weight loss can be found within us… right now without losing any weight.
Body acceptance is self-acceptance. Self-Acceptance is the platform for you to create permanent change (and no it doesn’t mean giving up).
Without acknowledging your current state and station, it’s impossible to know what’s going on with yourself. You have to accept your current reality and the way things are to be able to move on. Self-acceptance lets you take stock and make changes at your own pace without ultimatums and makes them an actual, conscious choice that you make. Accepting something for how it is now doesn’t mean it will never change, it just means that it doesn’t have to for you to see value in it.
By accepting yourself you move from love to fear. From that place of love, you’ll be able to find and heal what is really holding you back. What is really the issue… instead of what everyone else thinks is the issue.
5 Day Body Acceptance Challenge
Ready to beging the journey towards body acceptance?
Ready to make peace with your body?
I’d love to invite you to join me and hundreds of other women in our 5-day Body Acceptance Challenge. This free (and highly transformative) 5-Day Body Acceptance Challenge will get you started with accepting your body right now unconditionally (without having to lose any weight! 😀).
I’m going to share what I’ve discovered after years of studying eating & body image psychology combined with personal practice is what I’ll be sharing inside the Body Acceptance Challenge.
I’d love to invite you to join me and hundreds of other women in this 5-day journey.
Hope that I’ll get to meet you inside the Body Acceptance Challenge.
with love,
Stephanie
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