3 Simple Tips to Break Free of the Myth: “You Have to Be Skinny to Be Beautiful”
Do you think you’re skinny enough? If you’re like most women, probably not.
The sad thing is, no matter how skinny they get, many women still don’t feel beautiful. They believe they need to achieve a certain weight or dress size first. They need to be “skinny enough,” whatever that means.
It’s a myth! And letting it go is one of the best things you can do for your self-esteem and your body image.
The Skinny Myth
In my book, Discover Your Personal Beauty Profile, I challenge the most popular cultural myths about beauty. And the biggest of them all has to do with your weight.
As women, we were told as young as 12 or 13 years old that we had to be very, very thin in order to be beautiful.
Add to that decades of being bombarded with images of skinny supermodel beauty, it’s not surprising most women feel like they’re not skinny enough! But the truth is, skinny doesn’t equal beauty.
How the Skinny Myth Actually Makes You Fat
The craziest thing about this fixation on being skinny is that it can work against us and cause us to gain weight!
Women focus so much on how fat their bodies are…and so their bodies hold on to extra pounds. Women act like their bodies aren’t skinny enough and—guess what? Their bodies respond by not being as skinny as they could be.
When we focus on what we don’t want we empower it, we energize it. When women focus on the belief that their bodies are too fat, their bodies will actually hold on to extra pounds to make that belief true. When women act like their bodies are not skinny enough, their bodies respond by not being as fit and trim as they could be, just to keep the “not skinny enough” pattern going!
If you’re feeling too fat, think about this: when was the last time you said something negative about your body, out loud to yourself or to someone else? Most likely, you may have already experienced that today!
It’s time to stop beating yourself up and focusing on what you don’t want!
Can You Be Beautiful at Any Size?
Can you be beautiful at any size? Most women don’t believe it, but the answer to that question is a resounding, Yes!
To show you how true this is, I want you to meet my 4 Types Beauty Panel. Each woman on this panel expresses 1 of the 4 Types of beauty in my ground-breaking Beauty Profiling System.
Two of the women on the panel can relate to repeated feelings of failure from not being “skinny enough.” They’ve since let the myth go and they’re loving their bodies!
The other two women on the 4 Types Beauty Panel let go of the myth that they had to be skinny to be beautiful at a young age and are free to honor their bodies, their beauty and their health.
What do you think about the myth that you have to be skinny to be beautiful? Do you agree with the response of the 4 women on my 4 Types Beauty Panel? Be sure to watch the video and leave a comment or ask a question.
What do you think about the myth that you have to be skinny to be beautiful? Do you agree with our response? Be sure to leave a comment or ask a question.
3 Tips to Let Go of the Myth (and the Pounds!)
If you’ve ever felt like weight loss was a struggle, or that your body wasn’t skinny enough to be beautiful, you can let go of that myth. Once you let go of the myth, you will free your body to feel good and loved—which actually makes it a lot easier to let go of those extra pounds.
Once you let go of the myth, you won’t be losing weight in order to be beautiful—because you already are beautiful! Your body will just naturally shed pounds that it doesn’t need to carry around anymore.
To help you let go of the myth that you have to be skinny to be beautiful, use these 3 tips to start honoring your body and your beauty exactly where you are.
Tendency 1: Buying clothes for dress size rather than fit.
Tip 1: Buy clothes that actually fit you! For many women, beauty corresponds to a dress size. And the number never seems small enough. Stop tying your self-image to an arbitrary number. Cut the size labels out of your clothes if you have to!
Look at Marcy on our panel. She says she feels more beautiful and comfortable when she focuses on wearing clothes that fit well, rather than tying her worth to a number on a label. And isn’t she lovely?
Tendency 2: Looking in the mirror and noticing or complaining that you’re not skinny enough.
Tip 2: Look at and talk about your body like the gift that it is! You influence your body by what you believe about it. When you say you’re too fat, you set up a pattern in your life to keep you feeling weighed down and keeping those extra pounds right where they are.
And this pattern starts way too early for most women. What did you think about Anne’s story of the 80-pound girl in 7th grade? Maybe you’ve heard a skinny, skinny teenager yourself, saying she needs to lose weight. You heard the beginnings of the lie she started to believe about herself.
Embrace the truth that every single woman is beautiful! You don’t need to be skinny to express your natural beauty. Notice your beauty. Celebrate it. Your body will respond.
Tendency 3: Waiting to buy new clothes (or hanging onto old clothes) until you lose weight.
Tip 3: Don’t wait until you’re skinny to love your body!
Honor your body right now, no matter your size. One of the best ways to honor your body is to wear the right clothes for your Type of beauty. When your clothing moves the way you naturally move through life, you feel lighter and more comfortable.
We’ve seen weight loss happen for many women as a natural byproduct of our Dressing Your Truth program. They start loving their bodies, no matter what size they are, and their bodies start to feel better and healthier.
When you Dress Your Truth, it’s easier to live in your body because your body feels loved.
Start Feeling Beautiful Today
The myth that we need to be skinny to be beautiful keeps defeating women because it puts off until later what women should be doing today: loving, honoring, and adorning their bodies.
So, what can you do? Learn your Beauty Profile. It’s the first step to a new mindset about your body and your beauty. And that first step will lead you to a community of women who share a sense of beauty camaraderie and support.
Take my 3-Minute Beauty Confidence Quiz. You’ll discover which other fashion myths are affecting your life, and how you can let go of them to be your most beautiful self!
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