Today’s Loving Yourself Thin exercise is more suitable to the weekend, which is why we’re doing it on Saturday. It’s pretty simple, yet powerful: every time before you eat anything today, go to the mirror, look yourself in the eyes, and tell yourself, “I love you no matter what kind of food you eat or how much food you eat. You are my best friend and I love you and support you 100%”. After you are done eating go back to the mirror and repeat the same affirmation, directly in your eyes.

This exercise will not only help you strengthen your relationship with yourself, but it will also help to raise your consciousness of your eating habits. You will have a hard time eating on autopilot today!

Additionally, I guarantee that this exercise will bring up some sort of thoughts or emotions for you, possibly strong ones. You might feel “put out” by doing this every time before and after eating, or experience resistance to it. That’s OK, do it anyway. You will reinforce that you are there for you, no matter what or how much you eat, and you will end up loving yourself just a little bit more than you did yesterday.

Notice that you aren’t restricting yourself in any way. I’m not suggesting that you do not eat or overeat, only that you do your mirror work before and after each meal or snack today. I promise that the more you love and support yourself throughout your eating or overeating, the less power your overeating will hold over you. Think about it: do you usually feel good about yourself after eating unhealthy foods or overeating? Therefore, if you affirm to yourself that no matter what or how much you eat you still love yourself and you are your own best friend, then you will be building up many more positive and loving thoughts towards yourself. The more you love yourself, the better you will treat yourself, the less you will overeat, and the more positive rather than negative feelings you will have about yourself.

It would be optimal that after doing each mirror work session today that you then journal any thoughts and feelings that come up for you. Since you will be doing several mirror exercises today (depending on how many times you eat), this might not be feasible for you to journal after each session. If you can that is excellent, however at the very least be sure to write in your journal or notebook at the end of the day, noting the thoughts and feelings that came up for you today.

If you do happen to be working today what you can do is take a break and go to the restroom before and after you eat. If you don’t eat at your desk throughout the day then you won’t need to do this very many times, and when you go to lunch it will be easier. If you are running errands you can use the mirror in your car before and after you eat.

There is no greater gift that you can give yourself or your loved ones than loving yourself more. In fact, you can only love others to the degree that you love yourself - you cannot give away something that you don’t have. So, if you are having a hard time being willing to love yourself, you could think about these exercises as benefiting your loved ones since you will have more love to give to them. Certainly you can also use the motivation that by loving and accepting yourself as you are today, you will have a much easier time losing weight because the more you love yourself, the more naturally motivated you will be to treat yourself with care and respect.

If this is the first time you have come across this series, you can read the introduction to 31 Days of Loving Yourself Thin, which includes a list of all current exercises.

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