I LOVE ME. (DAMMIT.)

I wholeheartedly believe that weight-loss is about 90% mind, 10% body. I might even go as far as saying 99% mind, 1% body but I'm pretty sure my body puts more than 1% work into whatever's going on at the moment. Either way, the mind is 90-something percent of it, says me.

I believe this because I've proved my body wrong a lot of times but only because my mind was in the game. Had my mind not been in the game, it would have told my body to stop. Which it has done plenty of times too.

My mind is the final answer when it comes to making the decision to give up.

Sure, things hurt and my body says so. But it's never my body that gives out (except for maybe when I'm doing the plank.) It's my mind that gives out. It's my mind saying there's pain. It's my mind freaking out about what's lurking in the water beneath me. It's my mind saying I can't breathe. It's my mind responding to my body when my body whines and my mind placates it.

We have a new "Monthly Project" over at the The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans which is a, well, monthly project that usually has something to do with your mind through the weight-loss journey as opposed to the physical aspect of weight-loss. Because, of course, I believe so much of weight-loss has to do with your mind. It also has so much to do with how important you believe yourself to be and when you begin to fall out of love with yourself, you diminish your own importance (and that's usually when you fall off the wagon.) You begin to believe that what's on the outside is a reflection of what's on the inside and if you're unhappy with what's on the outside, you don't believe that what's on the inside is worthy of anything, especially love.

Sometimes when you don't love yourself, you find someone who loves you anyway, but eventually you begin to question why they love you because you don't even love yourself and then you do things like project your insecurities on other people and you sabatoge your relationships, not on purpose but because of your own unhappiness and lack of self-worth.

Eventually you will have to change your mind about yourself because if you don't, then you will continue not to love yourself but even worse, you will make it difficult for other people to love you and it's not because they don't love you but because you will be accidentally on purpose pushing them away because you believe you don't deserve it.

And it is all because you're unhappy somewhere, with the outside, with the inside, or with both. And especially when it comes to weight-loss there is always a moment when people begin to change their lives but it doesn't happen until they decide wholeheartedly and fully to put themselves first and to love themselves. Or at least to try. Because nothing can begin until you do. I know because I did this. All of it.

And then you learn that nothing in the world will be as sweet as when you believe you deserve to be loved because then and only then will you be able to give everything of yourself to other people and most of all, to yourself.

And as part of the monthly project, I wrote a pledge. And I think you should take it.
This is the pledge to stop talking bad about ourselves, to allow ourselves to be happy and to allow ourselves to feel worthy of love and priority and time and all of those things that we deny ourselves because we don't love ourselves enough. Simply put, it is to say, "I LOVE ME."

Here is the pledge and I beg of you to join me in taking it, even if you have never ever heard of the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans (which is just crazytalk), because this isn't about anything other than taking time to stop and reach down and see everything you are and love yourself FINALLY. So print it out, write "I LOVE ME" on your mirror, on a thousand little post-its, blog the pledge, whatever you want, but I beg you, just take the pledge.

The Pledge to Love Myself.

I pledge allegiance, TO MYSELF.
Today I will proclaim it
out loud,
TALL AND PROUD
I LOVE MYSELF.
From this day forward,
I promise to be nice.
TO myself and ABOUT myself.
I will accept my quirks and I will love my faults.
I will love my shape, whatever it is
My bones, my muscles, my hair and my face.
My body, all of it, inside and out.
Because that is what makes me, ME.
And there is only one of me.
I will finally allow myself
to see what others see.
My kindness, my spirit, my love.
And starting today, I will share some of it,
with ME.
Because I deserve it.
I will fight for myself, because I’m important.
And I deserve to be everything I am capable of in my life.
I deserve to find my greatness and live my life fully and completely.
With no regrets.
There is so much I want to do in my life,
but first, it begins with “me.”
I LOVE MYSELF.
Today, tomorrow, and every day after that.
I LOVE MYSELF, DAMMIT!
And no one can stop me.