Do I Love Myself?

Two questions that seem to come up when chatting with friends about weight and body image is whether I love myself and what's preventing me from loving myself the way that I am now-extra weight and all.  It's an interesting question and one that has left me speechless each time I've tried to answer it-that is until now. 


Think about that question for a moment, "Do I love myself and what's preventing me from loving myself the way that I am now?". Or re-frame the question and ask yourself, "Do you love yourself?  And if carrying a little extra weight, "What's preventing you from loving yourself as you are now?".  


I'm going to attempt to answer that question and get you, my readers, to think about a few things for a minute.  


In playing Devil's Advocate, I'm going to re-frame that question once again and ask, "Do I love myself by carrying all the extra weight I've managed to put on over the years?".  And if you're carrying extra weight yourself, take the time to ponder on that question for a minute.  


In answering the first part of the question, I'd say that yes, I do love myself; in fact, there are many things I love about myself such as that I'm typically a positive person, generous, forward looking and humble.  However, when it comes to body-image and looking at how much weight I've gained in the last 5 years or so, "no" it's not something I particularly love about myself.  How could I love and embrace what some consider the new me, when I know that I'm not and haven't been living my healthiest over the years?  How can I truly love myself, when I have spent years upon years abusing my body with food and treating it with complete disregard?  Are you still with me?  Think about it for a minute-how could you love you, when you know that you've been slowly killing yourself with food and by carrying more weight than you need to?


I understand that some of you may take offense to my take on this particular subject and that's alright, but I'm just being real with you on how I feel about this topic.


So to answer the question, "Do I love myself and what's preventing me from loving myself now, with the extra weight and all?".  Like I've already stated, yes, I'd say there are many aspects to me that I love, but there are others that I don't love and carrying the extra weight is not one of them.  In developing into the woman I became years back, this is not what I envisioned for myself.  I know deep down that this (added weight and all) is not me, nor an image I choose to embrace.  I refuse to continue abusing and disregarding my body with food and it ends NOW!  There's so much to me than what I typically present, and I plan from henceforth to LOVE MYSELF by putting my BEST, healthiest self forward!


How's that for a little love...