Negative body image is a soul-destroying thing, and it’s hard to overcome if your self-perception is negative. The goal should always be to embrace your body, and accept and understand that weight loss does not change the internal feelings towards it (even if it looks like it will in the media).

As a body transformation coach who has spent years working through body image issues for myself and my clients, I can confirm it’s not an easy or simple fix and although it’s been a long time coming, I have finally learned to embrace my body and its feminine characteristics, after spending so many of my younger years trying to ‘get rid’ of them.

Or, should I say, accept them. Embracing them is a stretch.

I used to consider curves to be annoying and there was a time where I would have done ANYTHING, no matter how unhealthy, to achieve the ‘perfect’ physique. After a long struggle with health issues caused by my relentless drive to be smaller I learned that ‘perfection’ doesn’t exist and nothing feels (or looks) better than optimal health. You need to embrace your body and if you don’t, you’ll forever be fighting with it.

Being skinnier doesn’t make you happier and ‘aesthetics’ don’t matter if your obsession with it impacts your life negatively. We are not all meant to be super-lean. Health comes first and it looks different on everyone. Strength and personal power are reflected in what you do, not what you look like and you’re success comes from embracing everything about yourself wholeheartedly, not from rejecting it

Sometimes as a woman you have to separate yourself from society’s insane beauty standards and honour your own individual journey to become the happiest and healthiest version of you

If you wish to explore this topic more deeply, I’ve put together a short self-coaching course – Beyond the Body – a guide to self-love and transcendence. In the program I guide women through the same steps I take my face-to-face clients through. It’s thorough and shines a light on the root cause of negative body image and offers solutions which work from the inside-out.

Jen x