I was reading an article about loving your body. It made sense to me that if you loved your body you would accept it and take care of it. It also said that those that loved there body exercise at least 3 times a week and those that didn't love their body exercise as much as they could. Maybe in a search or struggle. I didn't quite understand that spot. I'll have to find it and read it again. But then I was reading an article in SELF mag about women loving their bodies, it was eye opening.

But I was thinking of my life long struggle to accept myself. I'm half white and half native american. I have big hands and long ear lobes and I was always told I had my grandmothers hands. I had a hard time for ages accepting my heritage, growing up with NA family who drank and drank a lot while growing up. I associated being native with drinking. It wasn't until years later for me to understand why they drank. Most of my aunts and uncles were taken away from their parents and put in residential school, including my mother.

I've come to understand they why's but it doesn't change how I grew up and what I interpreted my life.

I used to obsess about not being petite and having tiny features like all the girls in my class, they were all white except me. I was a good girl, I followed the rules, my father was pretty authoritative and I was never close to my mom, I can't connect with other women. All these things have something to do will how I see myself and it's something that I'm going to work on.

I've always loved my eyes and my feet and will work on loving the rest of me. My hands for instance. They are big but they are strong and the work hard taking care of my boys, the can still caress and sooth my children's worries. I can love my body and find strength in loving it without relying on someone else's preconceived acceptance of it.

So do you love your body?

That makes sense about taking care of a body you love. I am working on loving mine, looking at the positives while I work on the negatives.

Honestly, as sad as it sounds, no, I don't. I think I actually try not to look at it, which is probably what has allowed me to get so out of hand over the years.

I'm not a petite woman either -- tall, broad-shouldered and heavy -- and I always remember not being the petite one, or people pointing out just how tall or how "big" I was.

I've spent most of my life hurting my body -- through starving as a teen or uncontrollably binging as an adult.

I have noticed though, in the times in my life where I accepted my body the most, those are the times I've gone slow and steady and had the most success for weight loss. Hmmm.

I'm working on it. You're so right about loving your body = taking care of it. I had poor self-image issues and very low self-esteem growing up (I vividly remember comparing my 'fat' thighs to other little girls when I was six years old). As I got older, my self-esteem dropped lower my weight went higher. For me, in order to lose weight I've had to come to terms (or at least face) these issues. I don't currently 'love' my body, but I'm slowly getting there and one of my goals for during my weight loss journey is to accept my body and love it as is.

by the way Gracie, you have done an AMAZING job with your weight loss!! Congrates!!!!

I just did a picture blog post on this topic this morning, what a coincidence

Short answer, yes - I do love my body these days and it doesn't have as much to do with weight as I thought it would. It's a good feeling

If I get honest, no-I've never loved my body. I have this picture from when I was younger. I was wearing a 2 piece bathing suit and a tank over it. I thought I was hugely fat which is why I wore the tank. I look back now at that picture and I cringe. You could see every bone in my chest. My family always made fun of me for being so skinny and not having any boobs. I was self conscious of my body either way.

Now, I've had several make comments of me being big and most days I could honestly tell you that I never looked in the mirror at myself. Like really looked at myself. I look at the parts I know I need to look at, in tunnel vision if you will. I look at my hair when it needs to be fixed. I look under my eyes to make sure there isn't mascara under them. I put makeup on where it needs. But I don't stand back and take an overall look.

I thought it was just a problem I've had since I gained weight, but looking back through school growing up, I realize it's far deeper than I really wanted to admit.

I'm working on it though. I'm tryng to learn to love myself, but I don't exactly know how to get there either.

Snowbound,

Well, I am trying to learn to. It is hard. I am not NA..... but most of your story hits home to me. I will never be petite. It is very hard to accept that when you are in HS and all the other girls are smaller than you are. I am built like an "Amazon". It took me forever to learn that I will NEVER be in a size 0.... my body was not built for that. However, I did not realize until recently that most men or whomever you are seeking attention from do not care about that. What they do care about is that you are confident.... and that is something I have not been until now.... with just a glimmer of it showing up.

I guess, for me.... the bottom line that made me begin to accept who I am and how I am buit.... is for some reason God made me this way and I have no right to question him! So.....I am learning to take care of this "big" body and love the person I am. Like I said, I will never be a size 0.... but a size 12 is fine with me.

I wish you all the best of luck.

Btw, snowbound..... you are beautiful! God gave you those hands for a good foundation of the strong person you are.

A couple of years ago I would have said no. Take it or leave it - not really that attached to it. Then the doc found a lump in my breast. Then the lump turned out to be a sarcoma. Then I discovered I really DID love my body - particularly my nipples and that I'd very much like to keep them.

Long story short, I have about half of one breast and 2/3 of the other and two nipples (thank you very much) and I appreciate my body everyday for the gift that it is. I feed it well (although often too much) and I take it to the doctor regularly and I exercise it (although often not enough) and I realize I only get one.

Although most of us are in the process of trying to "lose" some of our body, trust me that losing fat and losing parts are entirely different matters. And I have to say yes - although it is far from perfect - I do definitely love my body.

I do not love my body. I can't think of a single thing about it I even like. I have always been big... I started getting chubby in first grade and I got very fat very fast. The bulk of my weight is in my belly so I don't have pretty curves or anything, I just always look pregnant. I cover up as much as I can, but I hate the parts that show, like my fat face and my pudgy hands.

I want to love and embrace my body, but I just can't in this form. I'm working on it though...

I'm torn on this topic - do I love my body?

It's somewhat similar to the question: do I love myself?

Both of those questions feel completely foreign to me, like, they just don't make sense and therefore, there is no correct answer.

If someone asks me, do you love your boyfriend's body? I would say yes. Or, do you love your boyfriend? I would say yes. Then the questions make complete sense.... but they feel odd - logically incorrect - if I ask it about myself.

Maybe because I had a 'choice' with my boyfriend. I chose him. I never had a choice about my own body. Its simply there and I deal with it as best as I can.

So, do I love my body? I don't know - it is simply there. It gets me from point A to B.

Had I an actual choice in the matter, I would have chosen otherwise. I suppose I just make do and I don't think about it. It is what it is.

These two questions also seem particular to our generation, our culture. I haven't ever read, in historical literature, past cultures/generations asking this question.

My immediate guess is that the question is a product of the the current "Self-Help" trend. Interesting to think about! Thanks for posting.

That's eye-opening . . .

No. I've always thought I was supposed to have a different body based on my hands and feet, both of which are tiny. One foot is a AAAA, the other a AAA and I wear ring size 4.5 on my left hand. Doesn't that mean I should be tiny? The rest of me has never been that small.

I went through a really bad spell last year where I was reconciled to the fact I could die and it wouldn't matter. It wasn't sad, I wasn't depressed, it was just messed up thinking and selfish really. But in the midst of it, I felt like it would be a non-issue. How I thought that would be ok with my children is beyond me. Again, messed up thinking, but I think it was my typical way of making lemonade from lemons. I felt like my weight was beyond my control, so I accepted it. And to accept my weight was to accept death.

BUT I'M MUCH BETTER NOW!

Interesting question. I have had a couple of points in time when I was generally happy with my body. Not necessarily loved it, but was ok. But I'm still a far way from where I was at that point, and it's many years and a pregnancy later. I suspect that regardless of how much weight I lose this time, I'm never going to love my body completely because I think I will end up with bulges and skin that won't go away aside from surgery and I'm not sure I would be willing to go through with that.

I'm hoping I'm wrong, of course, since I still have a long way to get to goal and I know I can't predict what will happen by then.

And of course, that's just the visual aspect. I do love my body enough to want take care of it and be able to do more active things and have a long and healthy life. So I'm hoping that I'll be happy enough with that aspect, even if still not where I'd ideally be in terms of what my body looks like.