embody: Learning to Love Your Unique Body (and quiet that critical voice!)

Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science, epidemiology, and biostatistics at the University of South

“Since a person’s actions derive from her unique observations and reflections, she can always choose. Though her reactions are conditioned by previous experience, present circumstances bring ever-new perceptions and opportunities.”

Your goal with intuitive eating is to have as many nourishing and satisfying experiences as possible.

The Be Body Positive model shifts the focus from attempting to “fix what’s wrong” with your body to a practice of improving and maintaining self-care behaviors that are motivated by positive rather than punishing forces. The

If you find yourself having resistance to the information you read about HAES, please try to keep an open mind and remember that current approaches to weight and health in this country have not been successful in making our population thinner or healthier in the long term. The quick fixes promised by weight loss programs, TV shows, pharmaceutical c

Staying with self-love keeps you from withdrawing your love from your partner. You don’t need to prove they are wrong in order to feel good about yourself.

“conceit” and “regard for one’s own happiness or advantage,” which says a lot about why people have a hard time believing it is a worthy pursuit.

We also do not use euphemistic words like big boned or voluptuous, for they imply that we shouldn’t say the word fat because it is considered a “bad” word. The Body Positive is part of the size pride movement that is reclaiming the word fat as a neutral descriptor of a person’s body type.

Healthy Pleasures, Doctors Sobel and Ornstein summarize the results of numerous studies done on the health benefits of moderate exercise. One study found that getting an average of thirty minutes of physical movement per day through activities such as gardening, walking, fishing, dancing, and doing physical chores cut the occurrence of fatal heart

When you’re ready, get your journal or a piece of paper and write at the top of the page, “I give myself permission to…” Now, without consciously thinking too much, write down everything that comes to mind. What do you want to give yourself permission to do?