What are the consequences of a preoccupation with your weight? I’m not saying any of you are preoccupied with your weight, but just in case you are:

1. It takes time and energy away from personal growth and development.

2. It makes us believe our body is “the enemy.” (I would say body parts – for instance belly fat or flabby inner thighs.)

3. It breeds self-hatred. (Maybe hatred is too strong a word; how about self-dissatisfaction?)

4. It puts us into competition with other (even with others there is no way we should even be comparing ourselves with, like 16 year olds when you are 59.)

5. It takes away life’s spontaneity. To me that is the ability to do something because you feel like doing it. 🙂

Cycling

Let me try to describe to you the diet/binge cycle. (It is a picture in the book, but I don’t do pictures on these posts!) You start with low self-acceptance. If you think you are acceptable, you wouldn’t put yourself on a diet. From there you move to the structured diet/living. This eventually leads to feelings of deprivation that can be handled for only so long until they lead to a binge. Of course, the binge leads to feelings of guilt, which eventually can lead to giving up on the whole diet thing. And this may lead to further weight gain, which can lead you back to that point of low self-acceptance once more, so you go back on the structured diet/living once more, with the same outcomes. And it spirals on and on for 5, 10, 20, 40 years.

Consider changing just the starting point. Instead of staring with low self-acceptance, lets start with positive self-acceptance. This will lead to self-confidence, which leads to self-nurturing, which allows you to move on to enjoyable eating, then active living, which will ultimately make you feel even better about yourself, which leads to even greater self-acceptance. And this spiral continues, with the same outcomes. Better outcomes, though.

But it all starts with self-acceptance. Why can’t we all think as kindly of ourselves as others think of us? What a difference that would make!