Love Yourself Healthy
January 11, 2013Discovering what it means to “love yourself healthy” is key in overcoming the struggles that seem to plague so many of us after achieving extraordinary weight loss. Finding a lifetime of healthy weight management has many aspects towards success. Making healthy food and fitness choices are obvious facets. What has been overlooked is the importance of how to truly care about YOU.
Imagine that you have just spent a large sum of money on a designer handbag or perhaps your long awaited dream car. You have saved and worked hard to make this purchase and now you finally own it. In fact, you are so pleased with your purchase you may even feel inclined to show it off a little, proud of your purchase. “Hey, check this out.”
You might have made a special place to store your new handbag such as a hook on the wall. Maybe you cleaned out the garage so you can finally park a car in there. That old discount store purse has been easily forgotten and tossed at the bottom of the closet. The car you bought at the auction for a bargain has now been handed down or sold for cheap to make room for the new, better, more expensive auto.
The comparison of a valuable handbag and car offers an excellent parallel on how we appreciate things once we put value on them. How we see ourselves directly affects how we treat ourselves. Determine what kind of handbag you are or what kind of car you want to be. Are you caring for yourself like the old purse or the designer handbag? Are you a Lamborghini or a Pinto? Are you parking yourself in the garage or leaving yourself out in the elements? Are you tossing yourself on the dirty floor or placing yourself on a safe shelf in your closet? The reality is that when we value something we take better care of it.
How does one begin to care for oneself?
Looking at you as something valuable is the first step in finding time and making ways to nurture yourself. Oftentimes we have used food as the nurturing aspect of our lives, resulting in unintended adverse reactions. As we nurtured ourselves with food, we then had to deal with remorse, weight gain, and unhealthy fitness.
Loving yourself is much like the nurturing you do for all the people in your life. It includes being aware of needs. It requires the recognition of value, also the value of desires. Sometimes it even means being selfish when it comes to determining your needs over someone else's. It also means having a real understanding that we are in charge of our own happiness.
How do I begin “Loving myself healthy"?
To start off, think about what kind of handbag or car you want to be. Chose the one you feel has value and picture yourself as that handbag or car. Use this visual to remind yourself that you hold who you are in revere. Next ask yourself 10 ways you matter to yourself. Not to others, but to you. This can be difficult as many of us find our value in what we do for others or what we mean to someone. Finding ways you matter to you may feel foreign because it is probably not as natural to consider our self as one who matters. Learning this skill is paramount in learning how to love yourself. Take your time; start looking at yourself in a way that feels valuable and affirming.
Here is an example of how to show you matter to yourself. Perhaps you have bad knees. You may need to make sure your leg muscles are strong enough to support the injury of the knees. Making time to work out and possibly paying for the right kind of expert to teach you to work out properly would show love to yourself, thus, loving yourself healthy. This would involve finding the time to go to the right gym and doing the workouts to support this kind of care for yourself.
Another example may be to buy the right foods to support your weight loss instead of choosing less quality foods in order to save some money. In the long run, saving those few cents may cost you valuable health dollars. Besides, eating healthy usually doesn’t really cost more. I like to say, “You can never go broke or gain weight on fruits and veggies.”
Once you discover your worth, it will be expected and require very little thought in making the right choices for your continued weight maintenance. Loving yourself healthy becomes as natural as caring for all the other things you value in your life. Make that list of 10 things that show you matter to yourself. It will be the beginning of a wonderful love story. I promise!
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rain Hampton is a board credentialed Health and Wellness coach, certified bariatric support leader and motivational speaker. Rain has facilitated support for patients of Dr. Charles Callery and other bariatric centers fighting obesity. Rain was featured as the cover story of OH magazine, Winter 2012 issue and was a panelist at the 2016 ObesityHelp National Conference in California.Read more articles from Rain! |
