Book Review Chapter 1- Accept Yourself Today

This is my very first book review for the Book Fit from With: 101 Simple Secrets to Change Your Body and Your Life- Starting Today and Lasting Forever. 

Chapter 1: Accept Yourself Today

"If you don't accept yourself, you won't live fully, and if you don't live fully, you'll need to get full some other way."


This chapter is probably one of the most important chapters I have read thus far. Just reading the main quote from the chapter really sums up what it has to say. You can't accept yourself tomorrow, after you lose x amount of weight, when you get married, have kids, finish school or any other excuse. You have to accept yourself NOW. Today is the day.


We all know just how difficult it can be to accept ourselves for exactly who we are, especially if we feel like we need to lose weight. As the book discusses, today's media definitely doesn't push individuals to want to accept themselves as they are, with no changes. Everyday almost constantly we are bombarded with images of very thin, rich and "beautiful" women. Our perceptions of what success, beauty, wealth and ultimately happiness are very jaded by the media. There are millions of weight-loss products, pills and diets thrown our way everyday and as an overweight person, it is a constant reminder of how much I do not fit the "media ideal body". And speaking of "ideal" body, we are taught throughout life we need to be within a healthy weight range that is set by others based on our height and age yet the media gives us the implication that even people that are within their "normal" weight range still are not thin enough. It is terrible that those are the messages we are receiving daily from our society. It is very unfortunate these are the words that reach our ears and are embedded in our minds because many eating disorders stem from being constantly reminded that we are unattractive in the eyes of the media. We have to be stronger than the media messages, we need willpower to look past them. Willpower is something that I have struggled with a lot, but that is another post another day.

It is difficult to accept ourselves if we have self-defeating thoughts which can lead to self-destructive behavior like overeating and avoiding the gym. Learning to accept yourself today is vital. Learning that you have today to change the whole way you look at your life is almost mind-blowing. This week as a re-read this chapter in the book, it was like something clicked for me. Something changed in my head and went from saying "I can't accept myself and this weight, it's embarrassing!" to "I may be overweight, but I control my life, I control what my weight is, no one else can do that for me and today I chose to better my life, to life my life." It is very empowering. Try it today. Change the way you think about yourself.

To end this post I will leave you with another quote from this chapter: "Acceptance gives you peace of mind in the present and makes changes possible for the future."