“I’ll love my body once I’ve lost 5 pounds”

“I’ll like how I look once I can fit in my pre-pregnancy jeans”

“Once I have some stomach muscles I’ll look good”

Any of these sound familiar? It’s easy to get caught up in the ways that we wish our body was different. We think that once our body is smaller or stronger, we’ll like it more. But once you get to that goal weight or muscle tone you aren’t happier because of your body. The way you look cannot actually make you happier. However, the way you are thinking about your body does make you feel happier.

How do we know this is true? How many of us have looked at pictures of ourselves from before we had kids and thought, “I looked so good – I can’t believe I thought I needed to lose weight”? Isn’t that proof that it was never our bodies that were the problem in the first place?

This doesn’t mean you can’t want to lose weight, but do it because you choose to, not because you are chasing a different body to like yourself or your body more. Because guess what? Hating your body has done nothing to help you lose weight up to this point.

There is literally no upside to hating your body. Instead, you can learn to love your body you naturally will want to take care of it. As you become more grateful for the body you have, you want to give it the best fuel possible. Don’t get too weirded out yet, but you can even start developing a relationship of love and trust with your body. Once you can do that, the magic starts happening.