“If I lose weight, then maybe I’ll be able to be confident in my own skin.”, “When I’m lighter, I’ll finally be able to love myself”, or “I just need to lose several pounds and I’ll finally like what I see in the mirror”. These are just some of the thoughts we often hear from ourselves. We think that this is the natural way to go about being healthier without thinking of the consequences it may have on ourselves.

You may have told yourself that you need to achieve this weight first and then this weight next and the next one before you can finally love yourself. You may have made yourself believe that until you achieve these specific milestones, you will continue to feel inadequate and lacking for the rest of your life.

This leads to a lot of frustration and leads us to eventually give up on any goals altogether. In addition, this is one of the first ingredients for a recipe for disaster such as perfectionism, negative self-talk, low self-esteem, pleasing people, overthinking, etc. This will be too brutal for you and your mental health as time goes on.

So, what’s the alternative? Instead of fueling your desire to lose weight based on the desire to “Feel enough or loveable”, you should be driven by hard work and discipline. This is because if you keep pushing yourself based on the thought of “I’m still not good enough”, then you will never really feel enough. This is because even if you achieve many milestones, you will continue dragging yourself down and continue not feeling good enough.

We need to start with self-acceptance and self-love. You need to recognize what you’re worth by yourself. You have to appreciate every single effort you pour into improving yourself. In this way no matter which stage you are in your weight loss journey, you would still be able to love yourself.

This applies not only to weight loss goals, but also to other aspects of our lives such as financial goals, relationship goals, and career goals.

The mindset you need in this journey is that you need to be driven towards your goals with the right thoughts of self-love and acceptance. You need to chase your goals because you like to do so and it’s fun for you and makes you feel accomplished. In this way, you will be able to achieve your weight loss goals while feeling like you’re loved and worthy of affection from yourself!

Eliminate the desperation mindset and fall in love with the journey.

Love, Louise xx