...what would you tell yourself?

Would you use some tough love like Dr. Phil and say, "It's time to step up to the plate and demand more of yourself!"

Would you be gentle and nurturing and remind yourself that you are a loveable person who deserves to be treated better?

What questions would you ask yourself in order to try to get to the root of the problems?

I would not ask questions.

I would tell myself:

1) You really are what you eat.
2) They call it a silent killer for a reason, but you won't know that until: a) it's too late; or b) you adopt a healthy lifestyle.
3) Adopting a healthy diet and exercise is not a sacrifice. Get the diet and the exercise right and you will feel better physically, mentally and spiritually.
4) Food is medicine.
5) A calorie is not a calorie.
6) Eat clean.
7) Take care of yourself.
8) The most important thing you have is your health (my grandma said that to me - she's dead now but I have come to realize that she was right).
9) You have to break yourself down (with diet) to build yourself up again (with a different diet and exercise).
10) Diet alone will make you lose weight but you must exercise if you do not want to look skinny fat or gaunt.
11) Changes in weight are a combination of fat and muscle loss and fat gain and muscle gain.

I am my own life coach, we all are. I've spent lots of time and money seeing therapists and I have gotten to the root of all my problems - this has not helped me drop even a single pound. The past is the past, I need to live in the present.

The tough love approach isn't for me, it's never done me any good. Progress started happening what I started being nurturing to myself. I have changed my internal dialogue which sounded like this "I shouldn't have eaten that, I'll always be fat, my double chins are disgusting, nobody wants to look at me because I'm so gross" to this "I love my body for what it does and how it looks, I love the food I eat, I am good enough as I am, I love and care for myself"

At the end of the day it is so much easier taking care of a body I love than taking care of a body I hate.

Yes. This. Every single word of it - except for the therapy part which I've never formally done.

Progress happened for me when I accepted that I needed to stop fighting myself. I do know what is comfortable for me in many other parts of my life - I just needed to apply that to the way I eat. I needed to become a caring, encouraging and nurturing friend to myself. I needed to be as kind to myself as I would be to those in my life that I love. I needed to be as respectful as I am to someone I don't know well.

Sometimes I think it helps to turn the tables as post implies. Look at it from the POV of what you would say to another person - someone you truly value.

I have always appreciated your "tackle it head-on" attitude that is a constant theme in your posts and replies. My own approach is very similar. I don't invest any time in beating myself up, but I am very honest about where I am, where I want to be, and the changes I need to make to get there.

That's helpful to me, too. I always love Palestrina's wise posts, but I'm not as far along as she is in self-acceptance, yet I'm usually kind to others, so I try to talk to myself the way I would to a young friend.

One theme from all these posts is that the way we talk to ourselves is very important.

I would tell myself not to be so hard on, well, myself. I've always been very hard on myself because my mother always was and still is hard on me, especially when it comes to weight.

I'd tell myself not to listen to her so much and work on the me stuff more. I spend so much time trying to be comfortable in my own skin but I spend so much time listening to what other people have to say that it's almost impossible because every time I do feel comfortable (no matter what weight I'm at) she always has to bring me down a peg or two. Then I realize it's her issues, not mine and I need to grow up and face the fact that I'm responsible for what I think of myself and other people don't determine my self worth.

I guess the moral of the story is really what FluffyFat said, the way we talk to ourselves is very important. It determines exactly how we're going to feel about ourselves day to day and if we use tough love it might not always be the right path because being harder on yourself can be really damaging.