It's Not About Being A Bride: It's About Being A Woman

Recently, a lot of ladies I know who can associate with being fat or overweight, have been struggling with the concept of loving themselves.

I will never be an advocate of being unhappy. If your weight makes you unhappy it's up to you to pinpoint exactly what it's doing to you. Do you eat because you're sad, stressed or mad? If you eat your emotions it may be a good time to find other ways to express yourself. I found, as cliched as it sounds, taking a walk will help release some of your negative energies and make you feel better.

Do you eat because you're bored? I have. Which is why it's a great idea to fill your spare time with hobbies rather than nom noms.

After that are you still fat? I am. What about your fat is it that you don't like? Society has dictated that skinny is beautiful. If you aren't skinny you aren't beautiful. Is that how you feel?

Let me tell you this, you CAN be fat and beautiful. Society knows NOTHING about beauty. Why do you think the saying is "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? It's because what one finds beautiful another could find repugnant. And trust me, a man doesn't have to be a "chubby chaser" to find a fat woman beautiful. All he needs are the right eyes.

Beyond that, you don't need a man to tell you you're beautiful (or a woman for some of you ladies out there). Because you're first going to have to BELIEVE you are. It's not rocket science to find something about yourself attractive. Once you know what that trait is, own it! Play it up and use it to your advantage. Look at yourself in the mirror and KNOW you're beautiful. You don't have to love every part of your body. No woman does. Trust me, I've known many women of varying sizes and even the skinniest of them has an issue with something about her body.

You don't have to love your body to love yourself but you should at least be kind to it. When you say to your body that it's a fat piece of garabage, you're telling yourself that you aren't worthy of anyone's love or attention. Just because you're fat?! You really believe that? Well, it's false. Every human is worthy of love and someone out there will love them.

Obviously, I don't want to make this a "me" party however, I do have my own life as a point of reference. I spent many years of my life worrying if someone would ever love me. I was a self loather from WAY back. I was fat all my life and still am! My entire school career was rife with name calling and teasing. I had a few friends but none of them seemed able to understand the hurt I felt. None of them were close to being literally disgusting to all their classmates.

How do you come out of that? How do you ever live your life normally? Every time I've tried to lose weight it's never been for my health or myself. It's always been because I wanted to sit at the cool table in school. I wanted to be accepted by people who only teased me because I was different from them. You can see why these diets didn't work. How could I even stick with something so shallow?

By now you're wondering, "How on earth did you go from hating yourself and everything about you to loving yourself so fully?". Or you're wondering if I'm ever going to get to the point! Either way the answer is, YES. I mean, I just told myself, "Self, this is how it's going to be. Either you want to lose weight or you are going to be happy with who you are." The more I thought about it the more I realized I'm happy with who I am. I don't have to be skinny to be loved. Derek loved me for longer than I even knew without ever caring about my weight. Being skinny isn't going to change any of my problems, the emotional ones. I'm going to have a chemical imbalance and depression whether I'm 280 or 180. Of course, no one wants depression but even in coping with it I'm still happy with who I am.

Ladies, whether you're married, single, engaged or divorced; loving yourself will be the cornerstone of someone loving you. It will also provide the confidence you need to trust your partner and have them trust you.

You are all beautiful in my eyes!