Wise: Andrea Amador

Plus Size Women Can Love the Skin They're in - 50 Self Image Makeover Morsel Tips
By Andrea Amador

How many times have you sighed about the size of your thighs, moped about your muffin top or groaned about the junk in your trunk while trying desperately to avoid temptation and stick to your diet? If you're like 4 out of 5 women, you'd say that you hate some part of your body and being overweight is why you feel lousy. When you feel lousy, you eat more, when you eat more, you feel terrible about your body. It's a self perpetuating cycle.

As a professional coach, body image/self esteem expert and a curvy plus size gal, myself, I've learned that the answer is not dieting. Research now shows that up to 98% of all people who have lost weight on a diet, regain all the weight back, plus more, within 2-5 years. This is because diets don't teach you how to deal with your emotions. If you want to feel better about yourself, you don't have to change your body, you have to change the way you think about it.

How to embrace your curves in a skinny obsessed society
Food and weight obsession is the fall out that comes from living in a thin is beautiful, pluck and tuck, chop and drop, image-obsessed society. As a plus size woman, you're built with a wider frame and larger proportions. Despite the fact that up to 67% of women in the US wears a size 14, fashion still caters to thinness, making the larger woman feel fat and ugly.

If you want to end the war with your body once and for all and begin to make peace with food, you have to first start by learning to accept your body as it is, with all the fat, chunky, chubby, and wobbly bits intact. Wouldn't you agree it's high time that we widen the definition of beauty?

Here are 50 quick tips to get you started on the road to self acceptance to lovin' the skin you're in:

1. Pause and do some deep breathing.

2. Make the decision to say goodbye to dieting

3. Become aware of your internal dialog

4. Make a list of the buggin' you's in your life.

5. Seek out a great role model for body confidence

6. Look in the mirror and find things you like about yourself.

7. Develop a strengths based awareness. Know what makes you shine.

8. Spend time appreciating what you have and count your blessings.

9. Recognize your needs and know that they are important.

10. Assert yourself

11. Remind yourself often of your accomplishments.

12. Spend time with people who respect and value you as a person.

13. Appreciate your body for it's function.

14. Get rid of your scale

15. Wear clothes that really fit you

16. Buy some new lovely undergarments

17. Praise yourself - Focus on what you like about yourself

18. Watch body affirming television shows like Lifetime's "How to Look Good Naked"

19. Spend time alone to refuel your spirit.

20. Touch your body.

21. Get more sleep and take more breaks

22. Make a list of your favorite things.

23. Avoid all or nothing, black and white thinking.

24. Challenge yourself to speak up and say what's on your mind

25. Spend time laughing out loud

26. Ask yourself, "how do I feel about ...?"

27. Surround yourself with beauty

28. Listen to your body's wisdom

29. Avoid the body comparison game

30. Flaunt your individuality

31. Start each day with a smile

32. Ask yourself better questions

33. Forgive yourself

34. Make peace with your past

35. Plan something to look forward to each day

36. Accept your imperfections

37. Enjoy safe sex

38. Say "No" to others and "Yes" to yourself

39. Be sensitive to yourself when you're feeling down

40. Create opportunities to talk about what's bugging you

41. Avoid shame and guilt

42. Commit to being your own best friend

43. Don't make it personal. Recognize that people are only doing the best they can

44. Take 100% responsibility for your life

45. Spend time in nature

46. Learn how to meditate

47. Write down your goals.

48. See yourself from the eyes of one who loves you.

49. Don't take yourself too seriously.

50. Volunteer your time and give back to others

Now that you've got these 50 tips to get started, you'll soon notice that your perceptions will start to change. As you focus more on what you like about yourself, you'll find more to like. And that's the real secret to being a curvy and confident woman at any size.

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Andrea Amador, CEC, M.NLP is The Juicy Woman. As a certified professional coach and Body Image/Self Esteem expert, she teaches women who are emotional eaters how to overcome emotional eating, make peace with foods like french fries and pies and love their thighs at any size! Sign up to get her free Lovin' the Skin You're In Sampler: Self Image Makeover Morsels at http://www.thejuicywoman.com/

Article Source: Ezinearticles.com