Many of my friends seem so unhappy with the way they look. Being thin seems to be the thing that they aspire to be. They diet, exercise and all the while, lose more and more faith in themselves. Their inability to be thin and beautiful eventually wears them down to the point that they give up and their confidence slowly sinks.

I find it quite ironic that we associate thin with beauty. Sure, there are many beautiful thin people in our world today, just look on the cover of any magazine and you will see the very thing that we aspire to be. What is beauty anyway? Can someone please tell me what beauty is? I’m sure many of you would like to know. It seems to me that beauty has been defined by media. How sad that we feel compelled to try and achieve something drilled up by an industry who is really only interested in selling product.

The absolute tragedy is that my friends are beautiful inside and out but trying to achieve the impossible has left them so jaded with life that they don’t see their own beauty. I simply can’t imagine the emotional weight they carry around with them everyday thinking that they are no good or fat, ugly and worthless.

The truth is that you are lying to yourself. You are telling yourself that everything will be alright if you can just drop the pounds. That somehow losing weight is going to make you happy. A friend of my Mothers recently lost a great deal of weight. She was classed as morbidly obese and decided one day that she was going to diet and exercise until she lost all her weight. She has lost so much that she now looks unhealthy. Mum spoke to her a few weeks ago and the lady shared that she felt even more miserable now that she was thin. She hated her body when she was overweight and believed that if she was thin that she would be happy, just like the girls on the cover of those magazines. With all the weight gone, she is now realizing that she isn’t any happier. All those years of self loathing has all but destroyed her self confidence. Rather than really trying to find the things that make her an amazing person, she focused on all the negatives and looked for a physical fix.

I am struggling with many of these feelings on a daily basis. I look at myself in the mirror and point out all the negatives. I know that this doesn’t help me whatsoever, if anything it’s destructive. I have many assets and luckily for me, a partner who often reminds me that I am beautiful.

It might sound like I’m saying that you can’t win either way, I’m not. What I’m saying is that you can’t assume that losing weight is going to make you happy. Accepting your body with all it’s curves, shapes and scars will give you the power to move on. When that happens, you will look in the mirror and say, I’m gorgeous. I’m beautiful. I’m me.
Wanting to achieve a healthy weight is still very important to your overall health and you need to work on it. Keep in mind that it isn’t a race. It takes time, patience, hard work and commitment but the rewards will be there at the end of it.

And that’s the truth!

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