We’re coming up on the weekend, a time when many people who stick to healthy eating and exercise habits during the week then turn to unhealthy habits over the weekend. If you do this, it could be habit, it could be emotional eating to relieve stress, or it could be because you are forcing yourself to practice healthy habits during the week, while on the weekend you “let it all go”.

Now there is a difference between the “forcing yourself” to get over the hump when you are getting off of processed foods and all of the addictive ingredients that are included in them, and “forcing yourself” to live healthy when you think it’s what you should be doing. The goal of these exercises in Loving Yourself Thin over these 31 days is to increase your love and respect for yourself as you are today, extra fat, overweight, whatever is a part of you right now. When you truly love yourself, you will naturally want to take care of your body and your overall health. It won’t be such a struggle to treat yourself well, because when you love yourself, you want to give yourself the “good stuff” in life.

Therefore, you will notice that in these exercises I am not talking about changing your eating and exercise habits, but going through another door instead, a door that is closest to the root of where your motivations to overeat live: in your thoughts and feelings (feelings are thoughts), both conscious and subconscious. Part of loving yourself is discovering what thoughts are driving your unhealthy treatment of yourself. You wouldn’t want anyone you love to be overweight and unhealthy, so why should you treat yourself any different? Well you won’t when you love yourself and love your body.

Today’s exercise on Day 5 of Loving Yourself Thin is to go to the mirror, focus on your reflection, look yourself steadily in the eyes and tell yourself, “I love you exactly as you are, no matter how much you weigh or how much you eat. I love you when you overeat, eat junk food, fast food, or any non-nutritious food. I love you and I am here for you”.

Repeat this at least 10 times and then write in your journal or notebook the thoughts and feelings that came up for you. This can be a powerful, loving statement if you are someone who overeats because you are punishing yourself for something, whatever that may be. You could be punishing yourself for putting your foot in your mouth during a recent conversation, or for thinking that you failed at something important in your life. You could be punishing yourself with food because you are overweight. To others the source of your punishment might seem trivial, but that does not matter if you feel that you should be punished.

If you are punishing yourself with food and overeating and you love yourself anyway whether or not you overeat, doesn’t this take the power out of your punishment? Here’s another question: would you continue to punish someone you love for the act that you are punishing yourself over and over again with food? Or, would you forgive that person who you love?

Today’s exercise is just one more step in loving yourself, as you are now, whether or not you overeat and regardless of what you eat. As with any of the exercises during these 31 days, when you hit upon one that really resonates with you I would encourage you to continue with that exercise every day for the rest of the 31 days, in addition to the exercise for the particular day. You see, when you do an exercise that brings up strong emotions for you then it clearly has meaning for you, and something more to teach you if you choose to continue with it.

Feel free to share your experiences (or questions you might have) in a comment.

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