Love Your Curves

Embrace the Body You’ve Got

I had to learn a long time ago to love the skin that I am in. Since the second grade, my body has been wider and bigger than most other people around me. I have been on every diet known to man. You name it, and I have tried it. Yet, at 56 years old, I am very much a plus size woman. I have had to love what I see in the mirror. I have given up trying to attain something that does not exist…the perfect body. No matter the rolls, no matter the cellulite, I LOVE what I see in the mirror. No amount of magazine covers with unrealistic body figures, no amount of diet commercials that bombard my television screens, and no amount of before and after ads on the internet, will make me hate my body. Love your curves. I love mine.

You are Your Body

Embrace the body you’ve got. Love your curves. It will lead to an amount of self-esteem that no bottle of dangerous diet pills will ever bring. My big bust, my small waist, my bigger hips, and my big thighs that have never known space in between them, are all mine, and I embrace them. It does not mean that I will never try to lose weight again or that I don’t want to lose weight. It does not mean that I don’t embrace a healthy lifestyle. But right here, and right now, I embrace my body. Why…because it is a part of me and has accompanied me on this wild journey of ups and downs. It is a part of who I am. There is no disconnection. You are your body. Hate your body and hate a part of whom and what you are!

I have my late mother to thank for so much of my self-esteem. She NEVER treated me as less than and never constantly insisted on some diet craze. She let me be me…figuring it out along the way. I also had a great group of seven siblings who have always loved me unconditionally and have been a part of my journey along the way….always cheering me on through every diet craze, every failed attempt, and every restart. They always reminded me, even when I was at my heaviest (70 pounds heavier than I am now) that I was fabulous as is. God bless them. Sometimes when doubt tries to creep into my psyche, I can hear their small sweet voices of love.

Don’t Let Anyone Rent Space in Your Head

Don’t let outside influences (friends, family, co-workers, church folks, and society) make you believe that you are less than beautiful, less than whole, less than worthy…because your scale reads differently than theirs. As I always say, don’t let people rent space in your head. Begin with embracing what you have and it just may create an easier path to what you want.