How many times have you pined for the size of your thighs, moaned over your muffin top, or complained about the junk in your trunk while desperately trying to avoid temptation and stick to your diet? If you are like 4 out of 5 women, you would say that you hate some part of your body and that being overweight is the reason you feel bad. When you feel bad you eat more, when you eat more you feel bad about your body. It is a cycle that perpetuates itself.
As a professional trainer, body image/self-esteem expert, and curvy plus-size girl, I’ve learned that dieting is not the answer. Research now shows that up to 98% of all people who have lost weight on a diet regain all the weight, and more, within 2 to 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 Thin-Obsessed Society
The obsession with food and weight is the consequence of living in a society obsessed with the image, thin, beautiful, to pull and tuck, cut and drop. As a plus size woman, you are built with a wider frame and larger proportions. Despite the fact that up to 67% of women in the US wear a size 14, fashion still accommodates skinny, making the larger woman feel fat and ugly.
If you want to end the war with your body once and for all and start making peace with food, you first have to start by learning to accept your body as it is, with all the fat, chunky, chubby, wobbly parts intact. . Wouldn’t you agree that it’s about time we broadened the definition of beauty?
Here are 50 quick tips to get you started on the path to self-acceptance in order to love the skin you’re in:
1. Pause and take a deep breath.
2. Make the decision to say goodbye to diets
3. Become aware of your internal dialogue
4. Make a list of the things that bother you in your life.
5. Look for 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. Acknowledge your needs and be aware that they are important.
10. Speak up
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 its function.
14. Get rid of your scale
15. Wear clothes that really fit you.
16. Buy yourself lovely new underwear
17. Praise yourself – Focus on what you like about yourself
18. Watch body-affirming TV shows like Lifetime’s “How to Look Good Naked.”
19. Spend time alone to recharge 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 and say what you think
25. Pass the time laughing out loud
26. Ask yourself, “how do I feel about…?”
27. Surround yourself with beauty
28. Listen to the wisdom of your body
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 every 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 bothers you
41. Avoid shame and guilt
42. Commit to being your 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 to meditate
47. Write down your goals.
48. Look at yourself from the eyes of those who love you.
49. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
50. Volunteer your time and give back to others
Now that you have these 50 tips to get you started, you’ll soon notice your perceptions begin to change. As you focus more on what you like about yourself, you will find more things to like. And that’s the real secret to being a curvy and self-confident woman in any size.