do I want to be healthy or be skinny?

Go ahead and look inward and ask yourself: Do I want to be healthy or be skinny?

Personally, I can’t remember a time in my own life where I would have answered that I would genuinely rather be healthy than be skinny up until 2 years ago. It was music to my ears when someone told me I looked thin. That meant that my hours of working out and caloric restriction was working. I wonder now how in the world I thought losing hair, being perpetually tired, and nagging insecurities were a sign of progress!!!

Like clockwork, I would fall into a cycle of feeling okay, then overeating, feeling guilty, over-exercising to make up for my lack of willpower, then feeling okay again.

Now ask yourself: Does this cycle sound familiar to me? 

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with changing what you eat, doing cardio, and cutting out only excess calories. It’s the reasoning behind why you are making the changes you do. Health goals based on self-deprivation will never deliver worthwhile and positive results. If your diet and exercise regimen is something that you cannot keep up with for every day for the rest of your life, something is wrong.

Something is wrong because you are more focused on your dress size rather than your family and friends. There is so much more to life than having a perfectly flat stomach. Please hear me when I say that you are on this Earth to accomplish so many wonderful things – besides getting to a certain number on the scale. Your worth as a human is completely, totally, entirely, and utterly independent from your size.

The moment you grasp that concept, I promise that you will experience great freedom. No longer are you a slave to your calorie counting app. No longer do you have to stay home when your friends go get ice cream. No longer do you have to slave on the elliptical machine when you’d rather just watch some TV. No longer do you feel insecure because you know to your core that you are a special, remarkable, beautiful person.

Today, make the choice to be healthy, not skinny. Perform acts of self-care. Exercise for the sake of a healthy heart or endorphins. Eat food because it sounds tasty and makes you feel good. Base your lifestyle choices around self-love and health, not around achieving a dress size.