This Valentine's Day...Remember to Love...YOURSELF!

This Valentine's Day, as we give our hubbies and boyfriends cards and they give us flowers (and hopefully NOT chocolate LOL), I'd like to remind everyone of ONE very important thing you need to succeed on this program.

You need to LOVE -- YOURSELF!

We do so many things for so many others....and we put ourselves DOWN....oh, the stories I hear, where we berate ourselves (and I've done it a few times myself), call ourselves "stupid", HATE ourselve because we failed ... AGAIN.... we didn't have a loss, or we gained, or we binged, or we left this site for awhile and now are back trying again....wondering what went wrong....

But it all comes down to, how do you feel about YOU?

Do you LOVE yourself enough to take CARE of yourself? To do the right thing for your body and you SOUL? 
To TRY AGAIN?

Every time you 'slip up' and hate yourself (and believe me, I've been there) it bruises your pride and your ego just a little bit more.

And you do this often enough...sooner or later...you won't have the strength to get UP again. You'll give up. You'll convince yourself you 'don't have the willpower' (it's not willpower. It's COMMITMENT you need), or you're 'not motivated enough' or you're not 'strong' enough.

You ARE strong enough. And you ARE motivated enough or you wouldn't be here in the first place!

So STOP beating yourself up....be KIND to yourself. Today, think about your body and your mind and your heart and WHO takes care of them. Your spouse or live-in or boyfriend may love you, but in the final analysis, they can't feed you....they can't make you think good thoughts about yourself....they can't say 'No' for you. 

Only YOU can do that.

I learned as I progressed through this program .... to FORGIVE myself. And to finally, once and for all, LOVE myself.

It's NOT selfishness. Our bodies have ONE owner and only one owner, and that is US. If WE don't take care of it, WHO WILL?

And believe me, after a lifetime of failed dieting efforts, it wasn't easy to love myself.

I remember one time I was down in our garage...I remember it vividly...I had been bingeing all that weekend and was trying to get back on track. I was working on painting a bookshelf my husband put together (we're into a lot of DIY things around here)....and I had the CD player going, and all of a sudden a Barbra Streistand tune came on called "Lessons to be Learned".

Well, the words and the music moved me so much that I wound up putting down my paintbrush, sitting on the floor, and SOBBING.

Because I finally realized that ALL THOSE TIMES I failed....just getting back up again, I LEARNED from each mistake. And that it was just plain FOOLISH to keep beating myself up!  The only way we learn is via our mistakes. I could look back and see where I went wrong, and I knew I had to give it ONE.MORE.TRY.

"Lessons to be Learned"

They say there's a universal plan.  For every woman, for every man...
I do believe there's a higher power - but in our darkest hour, it's hard to understand.
So we start to question. Start to doubt.
We lose faith in what life's all about.

Why did the right road, take the wrong turn?
Why did our heart break, and why'd we get burned?
Just like the seasons, there are reasons for the paths we take...
There are NO mistakes, just lessons to be learned!

Don't give up, keep on lookin' deep inside...
and let your heartbeat, be your guide.
'cause there's a gift, for those who keep believing -
you'll find what you've been needing is right before your eyes.

You hold the answer in your hands,
and then you'll know, you'll finally understand....

WHY did the right road take the wrong turn?
Why did our heart break, and why'd we get burned?
Just like the seasons, there are reasons for the paths we take...
There are NO mistakes, just lessons to be learned!

No matter how many times, you stumble or fall...
the greatest lesson is LOVING YOURSELF through it all....!

WHY did the right road take the wrong turn?
Why did our heart break, and why'd we get burned?
Just like the seasons, there are reasons for the paths we take...

There are NO mistakes, just lessons to be learned!

......after this pivotal day? This song became my theme song...and I
remembered it, I held it close to me like a GIFT every time I
'screwed up again' and overate. And I learned to look for answers
in my failures...and to take a step back and realize that I HAD
to fail, in order to succeed.

PAT YOURSELVES ON THE BACK TODAY, everyone.
You are here, you are changing your lives, you are learning
to eat healthy and gain control over your eating, maybe for the
first time in your life!