How many times have you sighed about the size of your thighs, moped about your muffin top or groaned about the junk in your trunk while trying desperately to avoid temptation and stick to your diet? If you're like 4 out of 5 women, you'd say that you hate some part of your body and being overweight is why you feel lousy. When you feel lousy, you eat more, when you eat more, you feel terrible about your body. It's a self perpetuating cycle.
As a professional coach, body image/self esteem expert and a curvy plus size gal, myself, I've learned that the answer is not dieting. Research now shows that up to 98% of all people who have lost weight on a diet, regain all the weight back, plus more, within 2-5 years. This is because diets don't teach you how to deal with your emotions. If you want to feel better about yourself, you don't have to change your body, you have to change the way you think about it.
How to embrace your curves in a skinny obsessed society
Food and weight obsession is the fall out that comes from living in a thin is beautiful, pluck and tuck, chop and drop, image-obsessed society. As a plus size woman, you're built with a wider frame and larger proportions. Despite the fact that up to 67% of women in the US wears a size 14, fashion still caters to thinness, making the larger woman feel fat and ugly.
If you want to end the war with your body once and for all and begin to make peace with food, you have to first start by learning to accept your body as it is, with all the fat, chunky, chubby, and wobbly bits intact. Wouldn't you agree it's high time that we widen the definition of beauty?
Here are 50 quick tips to get you started on the road to self acceptance to lovin' the skin you're in:
1. Pause and do some deep breathing.
2. Make the decision to say goodbye to dieting
3. Become aware of your internal dialog
4. Make a list of the buggin' you's in your life.
5. Seek out a great role model for body confidence
6. Look in the mirror and find things you like about yourself.
7. Develop a strengths based awareness. Know what makes you shine.
8. Spend time appreciating what you have and count your blessings.
9. Recognize your needs and know that they are important.
10. Assert yourself
11. Remind yourself often of your accomplishments.
12. Spend time with people who respect and value you as a person.
13. Appreciate your body for it's function.
14. Get rid of your scale
15. Wear clothes that really fit you
16. Buy some new lovely undergarments
17. Praise yourself - Focus on what you like about yourself
18. Watch body affirming television shows like Lifetime's "How to Look Good Naked"
19. Spend time alone to refuel your spirit.
20. Touch your body.
21. Get more sleep and take more breaks
22. Make a list of your favorite things.
23. Avoid all or nothing, black and white thinking.
24. Challenge yourself to speak up and say what's on your mind
25. Spend time laughing out loud
26. Ask yourself, "how do I feel about ...?"
27. Surround yourself with beauty
28. Listen to your body's wisdom
29. Avoid the body comparison game
30. Flaunt your individuality
31. Start each day with a smile
32. Ask yourself better questions
33. Forgive yourself
34. Make peace with your past
35. Plan something to look forward to each day
36. Accept your imperfections
37. Enjoy safe sex
38. Say "No" to others and "Yes" to yourself
39. Be sensitive to yourself when you're feeling down
40. Create opportunities to talk about what's bugging you
41. Avoid shame and guilt
42. Commit to being your own best friend
43. Don't make it personal. Recognize that people are only doing the best they can
44. Take 100% responsibility for your life
45. Spend time in nature
46. Learn how to meditate
47. Write down your goals.
48. See yourself from the eyes of one who loves you.
49. Don't take yourself too seriously.
50. Volunteer your time and give back to others
Now that you've got these 50 tips to get started, you'll soon notice that your perceptions will start to change. As you focus more on what you like about yourself, you'll find more to like. And that's the real secret to being a curvy and confident woman at any size.
[expert=Andrea_Amador]
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