Dear Readers,

I started seeing posts about bikinis and swimsuits and it reminded me it’s swimsuit season again and the inevitable barrage of ads are about to start flooding your inbox telling you how to “get that bikini body you want” and “shed the weight just in time for swimsuit season” (This is also for the men, because they also struggle with this)  and I want to state here and now. STOP IT! We don’t need more advertisements to tell us we “NEED” to lose weight or even that we “WANT” to lose weight.

If you want to lose weight for you, I say awesome! Personally, I am working toward a loss of 23 pounds so I can be a bone marrow donor (they require you to be 270 pounds before they will allow you to donate) and and so I can be a good example for my daughter which is that healthy is a habit and if you make it part of your routine, you feel good, it releases endorphins and I don’t know about you, but I get some of my best ideas when I am swimming or jogging.

But if you are seeing these advertisements and feel like, “Yeah I could stand to lose a few or tighten or tone or do what I can to look better in this swimsuit…”

Ask yourself why you are doing it and if it’s for you and you alone, go for it!

But please please please don’t feel like you have to do it for your partner, or if you are single, to get a partner. Be you, exactly that, and nothing more and be happy with yourself.

So my question to you is, can you love your body as it is? That doesn’t preclude you from working out or doing things that YOU want to do to change it, and in the meantime, EMBRACE yourself and where you are, because if you say to yourself, I will be happy when I get my flabby arms more toned or when I lose that last 10 pounds that I still have from being pregnant, well you are wasting time being unhappy because this is your life, and your body and there is no time like NOW to get to loving yourself AS YOU ARE.

I will say this is not an easy thing and it’s taken me the better part of the last 5 years to really hone in on this and to constantly remind myself to love myself as I am.

So can you join in and love your body (the only one you have) EXACTLY as YOU ARE?

Think About It.