Practice a bit of body love

A good friend of mine, Esther Fennie, recently put up a post on her blog, HighHeels and Protein Shakes, about practicing body love and I decided this is a sentiment I want to echo.

You see, our mind set affects everything we do in ways we can’t even begin to understand. What this means is if you see eating healthily as a punishment, you’re doomed.

Just like if you hate your body and see it as fat, then that’s all you’re ever going to see. This is partly because even if you do lose weight, your mind says you’re still fat so that’s what you’re going to see, and then you feel like nothing works so you fall off the wagon and give you. The first step is to accept the body you have.

The next step is body love which is about coming to terms with the fact that healthy food is a reward not a punishment. As Esther put it, all she wanted was pizza and she felt like a naughty child who just wanted to break the healthy eating rules instead of obey them. This is all because of the mind-set, if you think good nutritious and healthy food is restrictive and punishing you, then you’ll want to rebel.

So in order to succeed you have to change your mind set. Every time you eat your plain oats, egg white omelette or chicken and broccoli, remind yourself and your body that this is a reward for the hard exercises it did or is going to do. You’re showing it love with good food instead of poisoning with crap.  

The same applies to exercise, you’re rewarding your body with an increased heart rate, endorphins and health. If you focus on this instead of the sore muscles or effort, then you’ll actually get somewhere with your fitness.

If you check out Esther’s article you’ll see she’s had great success since adopting this new mind set.

So change the way you think about your food and exercise and practice a bit of body love, remember, health is a choice and a gift, not a prison sentence.