You can’t hate yourself thin.  To the contrary, if you want to succeed at losing weight and keeping it off, you must start with a positive body image and be compassionate towards yourself.  Maybe you’re thinking, “how can I feel positively about this body? If I felt positively about it, I wouldn’t want to lose weight.”   You can accept your body and feel positively about it, and still want to improve it.  Truth: losing weight doesn’t mean you’ll have a good body image.  That’s because having a good body image is more about how you think than what you look like.  There are things about your body that you can’t control, no matter what you weigh.  But the one thing you CAN control is how you think about it.  Given a choice between changing your body and changing your body image, I encourage you to choose the latter to start with. Because once you change how you feel about your body, losing weight will actually be easier.  You have the power to change your body image and be compassionate with yourself now! Listen to learn what self-compassion is, how to cultivate it, and how to accept and appreciate the body you have RIGHT NOW. Because without it, you won’t achieve permanent weight loss or happiness.  We work on cultivating self-compassion in the Weight Loss for Foodies group coaching program. Learn more here