Why Reaching Your Ideal Weight Won’t Make You Happy

I know. You probably read the title and thought, “what?! Yeah right!” But hear me out. As women we all have our ideal weight whether it includes going back to high school weight, just losing the stomach and toning, getting a little thicker or losing inches. We all have something we would like to change about our weight, we’re human. However, I believe that reaching your ideal weight won’t make you happy unless you learn to love your body first. Have you ever had those moments when you just feel fat, you can’t fit into anything and you don’t feel comfortable? Or what about those moments when you feel you are too small/skinny to be considered attractive and you’d just love to gain enough weight to be considered thick? No matter what it may be, we as women all have something we desire to change about our bodies, but the lack of love we have for our bodies will prevent us from reaching those changes.

Your goal for reaching your ideal weight shouldn’t be because you hate your body. Your goal for your ideal weight should be because you LOVE your body.

Think about how often you put yourself down for your size, for the extra curves you have or the lack thereof, or the constant reminder of how you used to look. This is not the mindset of someone who truly loves their body and desires to take better care of their body and reach a healthier/desirable weight. How many times have you gone through the cycle of talking negatively about yourself and your weight, set diet and exercise goals, start those goals, lose motivation and fall off track? Only to start the cycle all over again. We’ve all been there, we’ve all done it. If you’ve been in or are still in this constant cycle, a new diet plan or weight loss goal is not going to keep you motivated. Learning to truly love your body and yourself for where you are right now is where you need to start and is what is going to keep you motivated. When you truly love and care about something you’re going to take care of it, right? Same thing goes with your body.

The model in the cover image is Tess Holliday and she is a plus size model and body positivity icon who started her #effyourbeautystandards movement on Instagram in 2013. Her mission to inspire women to love their bodies no matter what size has been an epidemic. Many women of all shapes and sizes have fallen in love with her confidence and her boldness. Campaigns for companies like Dove have also joined in on this body positivity movement to unite women and promote self-love.

If you are in this constant back and forth with weight loss but haven’t yet reached your ideal weight, ask yourself why. If your ideal weight loss goal is so you can finally be happy with yourself, then reaching that goal won’t make you happy. You will still struggle with loving yourself as you will always find something wrong. Let your motivation for your ideal weight goal be because you love yourself enough to start taking better care of your body. Let your motivation be your desire to feel better and live longer. Let your motivation be your desire to be a living example to your family and friends. Let your motivation be your desire to start treating your body as the temple God has declared it to be. Those are things that will truly make you happy once you are on that journey and when you reach that goal.

Make the decision today to stop putting yourself down, stop talking negatively about what isn’t right with your body, and start loving yourself – that’s the first step in reaching your ideal weight.

Until next time…