Self-Love is a core belief and foundation of The Anti-Diet Lifestyle.  It is the pivot that will turn your focus from dieting to not dieting!  It will be the guide to permanent weight loss and the compass that will point you towards the path you need to take.  On top of that, it is self-love that will create the unique map that you need to follow to find what you are looking for, one that will work for you and you alone.  This is the reason that The Anti-Diet Lifestyle’s, beginning, middle and end is sewn together with the thread of self-love.  Yes, these are big claims and you may not yet believe why on earth or how on earth something you cannot see can have the ability to change and transform your life!  If you trust the process and start to apply the principles, the clouds will clear and it will begin to make sense.  Before I go on to explain the reasons why The Anti-Diet Lifestyle focuses so heavily on self-love, let me also highlight what self-love will inject into your day to day life:

• An increase in motivation
• An increase in happiness
• A sense of purpose
• A sense of fulfillment
• A feeling of being comfortable in your own skin
• Remove the need to rush your weight loss journey
• Allow you to enjoy the journey and not just the destination

The list is literally endless but I hope the above alone will encourage you to at least be curious about this intangible thing called self-love!

Why self-love?

There are many answers to this question but the one that is most relevant for The Anti-Diet Lifestyle is that, through my own personal experience, I have found it to be the simplest and shortest route to weight loss success.  Notice that I did not use the word easy because, quite simply, if you have been suffering from weight and body image issues, self-love is going to be an extremely difficult path to walk on.  Please do not let this put you off because it’s a journey worth starting.

What exactly is self-love?

Self-love is when your operating system, the thing that drives everything you do, say and are is from the perspective of believing that you, exactly as you are, are enough.  It gives you full permission to love and care for yourself first.  It lets you say no, it lets you choose people and things in life that nurture you and you alone. This means that when you live a life filled with self-love, you make choices based on self-trust and self-acceptance.  When you face failure, or feel stuck you do not fire the bullets of shame or frustration towards yourself.  In a state of self-love you can rise above the crisis and truly search for anything good that you can salvage.  In fact, when you truly love yourself, your life becomes a joy and it becomes easier and you feel less impatient.  It sounds so totally unbelievable but I am living proof that it works.

A word of caution – self-love is not being selfish or unkind or inconsiderate to others, it just means that we value ourselves and are worthy of all that is good in life just as others are in theirs.

How to bring self-love into your life

From my experience, you can approach self-love from three angles:

From a spiritual stand-point

From a practical stand-point

A mixture of both

As with anything in life, a balanced approach is normally seen and proven to be the best way for maximum and sustainable results.  We are all painfully aware that whilst this may be the case, in practice, it is rarely achievable without a sustained and persisted tactic.  The Anti-Diet lifestyle is all about being achievable and with minimum effort so here’s an easy way to tackle this absolutely vital skill:

Download the 7 Day self-love challenge I have put together for this very purpose.  The tasks ask broken down into days and it costs nothing to give them a try.

If you are skeptical or a total disbeliever it does not matter as long as you are willing to give in to the exercises with complete (or as much as possible) conviction.  You do not need to be spiritual at all but you do need to commit to the process.  Think of it as learning to drive a car, you do not need to know how the engine works, you just need to know which levers, buttons and gears you need to operate and how.  If you follow your instructor’s advice, the car will move!  Likewise, if you follow the Anti-Diet Lifestyle exercises, they will work!

‘Self-love can be as simple as saying no to something or something and as complicated as forgiveness’

Sherry Taylor

I hope I have managed to spark your interest and if that’s the case, don’t forget to download the 7 Day self-love challenge and begin your own personal journey to success!

Written by Sherry Taylor, Author of The Anti-Diet Lifestyle