Stop Weighing Yourself and Start Caring for Yourself!

For years, I have facilitated fitness programs for plus-size women. Their reason for joining is almost always a pursuit of the idealistic thin body that is projected upon them daily. And let’s not fool ourselves, this isn’t just about plus-size women—women in general feel the daily pressure to achieve the perfect body. A Glamour survey found that women of varying body sizes have 13 negative body thoughts per day, one for nearly every waking hour.

My clients usually arrive with an illusive diet plan in place ready to change for good, along with a truckload of guilt when they can’t stick to their (often hard to stick to) eating goals. I relate and empathize deeply because for many years I was exactly the same way. Every couple weeks I’d fall off the diet wagon and feel like a collassal failure. My life was full of attempting to be “good,” followed by hunger, restriction, and the inevitable failure when I couldn’t sustain the latest diet trend. Mondays were for starting over. My relationship with exercise was as stop-and-start as the diets. It was always all or nothing.

Excerpted from self.com

Read Full Article