With the new year upon us, you are probably thinking about dieting.
When I was in the heart of my food and body struggles, with every new year came a long list of all the ways that I was going to change my body and restrict my diet. It was always about fixing and improving my body so that I could finally live my life to the fullest.
My goals for the new year would go something like this...
1- Lose the weight.
2- Don't eat sugar.
3. No fried food.
4. Fit into my "skinny jeans" again.
5. Stick with a raw food diet.
You get the gist.
I truly believed that once I lost the weight that I had gained from bingeing, then and only then could I love and accept myself completely.
This is a totally ass backwards way of going about this, and it kept me stuck in the restrict/binge cycle for many years.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
~Carl Rogers
It wasn't until I began to love and accept myself as I was, regardless of what I ate or how much I weighed, that I was able to learn how to listen to my body and eat intuitively, and in turn, effortlessly lose the extra weight without ever counting a calorie.
Guilt, shame, deprivation, and fear based strategies don’t work in the long run. Nonjudgmental curiosity and openness do.
In 2016, I want to encourage you to work towards being more accepting, loving, and compassionate with yourself and your struggles above all else. This, my friend, is where the magic happens.
Cheers to the new year!
xoxo
Liz