I once had a client ask me how to practice self love/acceptance while still wanting to lose weight and better her health.

There’s so much out there about body positivity and loving yourself at any size and just the way you are.

And let me be clear – I am 100% on board with this!

Your size, your weight, your health status shouldn’t be a determining factor in how much you love yourself.

But her confusion came because I coach people to be the healthiest version of themselves that they can be, essentially meaning ‘not being happy with where you are.’

So after explaining they’re not mutually exclusive, and in fact they’re a very healthy dichotomy of feelings to have about yourself.

An Analogy

You have kids, right? Or at least have the “greatest aunt award” solidly in your grips.

And you love those tiny humans unconditionally exactly the way they are. Even when sometimes they’re little gremlins, those littles just have your heart.

But you also want them to continue to grow and evolve and learn and become better versions of themselves, right?

In fact, you pride yourself on making sure that’s exactly the case.

You both love them as they are, but also want them to continue bettering themselves.

Another Analogy

You’ve got a career, or ventured out with your own business, right?

And you love it! It’s challenging and you’re doing what fulfills you and you can’t imagine doing anything else.

But you also want it to continue progressing and growing, right?

You have visions of your future financial independence and living life on your own terms, even though it’s a bit of a grind right now, you wouldn’t change it for the world. You love what you do.

So at the same time, you both love it but also want to see it continue to improve, right?

Getting the Idea?

While the two seem initially on opposite sides of the spectrum, it’s not the case at all. In fact, they go hand in hand.

Because you love those little people, or your career, or yourself is exactly why you want to continue seeing them grow and improve and becoming their best selves.

You can look in the mirror and be in love with who you see while still wanting to lose ten pounds.

You can be thankful of your strong legs because they can let you jog for miles, but still want to have more defined thighs.

You can be grateful for your strong arms which carry those tiny humans from place to place while still wishing your triceps didn’t have that annoying flabbiness to them. (seriously, what is it with that shit? Is it a prerequisite for aging? … just like our hair turns gray, do the back of our arms turn to mush?)

The fact that you want to take better care of yourself by getting healthier is, in itself, a form of self love.

And because your size or your weight doesn’t determine the amount of love you have for yourself, or your self-respect, is exactly why changing your weight (losing it) won’t make you love yourself any more or less either.

All of us continue evolving each day (hopefully) and with that means becoming a better version of ourselves (again, hopefully).

That goes for our intelligence, our health, the way we show love, and how kind we are to others. We can absolutely love what stage we’re at and how it looks in our life right now, but still want our future stages to be the best they can.