Now

One of my biggest self-image breakthroughs happened about a year ago.  A couple of my friends had lost a significant amount of weight and were looking healthy and skinny and fabulous.  I was so jealous.  I wished I looked that good.  Then a strange thing happened.  These women confessed they still disliked their appearance.  Even though they were quite skinny, they still felt fat. They didn't think they looked good enough.  They hated their bodies.

 I remember thinking how pointless that was.  What was the point of working my butt off to lose weight if I were still going to hate my body once I got skinny?  I could hate my body just fine right now!

And that thought right there, I can hate my body just fine right now, changed everything.  I realized I can love my body right now too.  If being skinny didn't equal self-love, then being fat didn't equal self-hate either.  There was no rule that said I had to wait until I lost 20 or 40 or 60 pounds to like my appearance.  I didn't have to wait until my skinny jeans fit or I lost my muffin top.  I didn't have to wait until I lost my pudgy belly or chubby thighs.  I could like myself now.

How you view your body has NOTHING to do with how your body actually looks. It doesn't.  If it did, then gorgeously beautiful women would never have body image issues would they?  You need to decide to love who you are and what you look like right now.  Not after you lose the baby weight.  Not after you get a boob job. Not after you start going to the gym more.  Right now.  I know, I know, easier said than done, right?  But you'll never love your body unless you first realize that you can.  That it's a possibility.  It honestly never occurred to me before -that I could like my body the way it was right at that moment.  I always thought I would like it once I 'fixed' it, but not before.

So give yourself permission to like the way you look now.  It will change you.