Any diets that make you cut out food groups don’t work. And remember if something isn’t long lasting, it hasn’t worked. So if you’ve dropped 3 stone, but gained it again quite quickly, thats a fail. And that’s a big problem with the big diets like Keto and Atkins. You do them, you lose loads of weight and it all goes right back on, with the little gift on a now slower metabolism.
I know it’s easy to say ‘well I’ll stick with it’, but that’s the trap you fall into, and it’s not healthy, you never do, and if it you did, it would be a life long obsession of staying away from carbs.
Intermittent fasting I am not a fan of either. It makes you focused on food again. Every day, every week, you’re adding, subtracting, and working things out. A bit like counting your Macros. I mean we’re not competing in body building competitions, why on earth do we all need to get so detailed?
Low fat oil that you spray on your pan… what’s that about? Are you going to get fat from a teaspoon of olive oil? Low fat butter, low fat milk… pointless… go with the full fat.
Giving up bread, not eating starchy carbs, what’s it all about? Losing weight?
Are all your food decisions based on weight loss?
What if you focused on being healthy? And eating 3 meals and 2 snacks? And moving more. And being a good role model to whoever is watching your actions. What if the poor body image stopped with you and you didn’t pass it on your kids or loved ones.
What if you ate your meals and enjoyed them?
There is a healthy life beyond counting calories, points and syns. You can get a good body image. You don’t have to jump on the scales. You don’t have to make your daughters or sons think it’s all about how you look.
Striving to be healthy is really, really cool because you get to live your life with passion. You get to workout, eat well, enjoy life and not worry about the small things that aren’t important.
When are you going to start loving your body?
When are you going to accept yourself as you are?
When you are healthy, you can look in the mirror and say ‘this is me’. When you’re healthy, you don’t strive for more health, you’re just healthy! When you’re always striving to look different, it never, ever stops. All it takes is one comment or one bad photo to make you think you are fat. When you’ve got a good body image, you can say ‘Wow I don’t like that photo’ and it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t shake your belief in yourself, you just got a bad photo!
When you have a poor body image, you can feel any way about yourself at any given point. You can feel slim, and literally the next day feel fat. But that is not rationally possible to be both in such a short space of time. With a poor body image, you’re constantly changing how you feel about yourself. And the horrible thing is, it’s all so fragile. All it takes is one throw away bad comment from someone, and BANG, you feel awful and it could take weeks to recover.
With a good body image, you know who you are and you’ve accepted yourself. You know deep in your heart who you are, and can look in the mirror and love yourself. You’re thankful for being alive and healthy. You know exactly where you stand with yourself. You know what you look like, you know the workouts you do, the food you eat, and you’re happy.
The lovely thing about that is that no one can take that away from you, only yourself.
I hope this helps. Please remember that life is short, and it’s really not that important how you look. Healthy is key, and yes, being clean and wearing nice clothes is great, but after that, can you learn to accept the beautiful body you have been given that is carrying you through this world?
Love,
Jessica Cooke X
