“I’m fat”. “I wish I had a body like hers”. “Why can’t I be skinny?”.
Sound familiar?!
For as long as I can remember, I have had body issues. Some might say body dysmorphia.
When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with baking. I loved baking delicious food, but unfortunately, that delicious food didn’t love me.
In high school, it resulted in me putting on a lot of weight.
I was “big boned”, as they say. But I’m not sure the bones were the issue.
I LOVED sugar, but for all the wrong reasons. Constantly gaining weight resulted in having self-doubt and lacking self-confidence.
Seeing myself in photos during high school made me depressed.
I didn’t believe in myself, so I would eat my feelings.
When I finished Year 12, I wanted to put myself on a better path.
So, I stopped drinking soft drinks, limited my sugar intake and fell in love with exercise.
But then my love for food turned into a love of alcohol.
My diet did improve but I would go out all weekend.
Come Monday, I would feel guilty so I would pound the pavement, do as many spin classes as I could, and eat very little.
I wasn’t respecting my body, and it was very noticeable in my face, which resembled a Hawaiian pizza.
And I was constantly so negative. “I have fat legs”. “Gosh, she is hot, why can’t I look like her?”.
Then I would sit on the couch and eat an entire pack of chips and block of chocolate.
Some people are genetically blessed with a perfect figure. I am not one of those people. I have to work for it.
There was also the fad diets – I have tried most of them.
I worked so hard on making my outer shell perfect, I forgot to nourish my soul.
So after years of partying, yo-yo dieting, drinking slimming tea, and bingeing on packets of lollies in my car where no one could see me, I knew I needed to change something.
I was so good at applying positive thinking to other areas of my life, but when it came to my body, my self-talk was horrible. If I said even 1% of what I say to myself to other people I would be considered mean or a bully. So that brings us to the question of, why are we so horrible to ourselves!?!
So I changed my thought pattern.
Rather than saying “I’m fat”, I would tell myself “I love my body”.
Rather than “you look shit”, I would say “you look fantastic”.
I have found affirmations to be BRILLIANT.
Louise Hay’s book “You Can Heal Your Life” is a game changer.
She suggests saying “I am willing to change” over and over in your mind to cement that you ARE willing to change.
Louise has so many affirmations we can say daily to massage the mind.
I am also a firm believer that looking good comes from the inside.
It is so important to nourish our insides.
When I eat junk, I feel like junk. My body is my temple and what I put into it affects my mood.
If I am feeling down, I have a look at what I ate that day.
When I started to be in tune with my body, when I made adjustments to the food I was eating, I instantly felt happier.
I started to cut out refined sugar, dairy and bread.
I still treat myself, but I eat more protein. I drink more green juices. I stopped obsessing over every little thing I put into my body.
And if I have a bad day – which for me is stuffing my face with every bit of sugar I can get my hands on (hello four blocks of M&M chocolate in a week) – I don’t dwell on it and beat myself up.
I sit back, take a breath and look at why I tried to sabotage my body. What was my trigger point that day?
Then I claim it and LET IT GO. Tomorrow is another day.
Love, light and gratitude,
Jxo
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