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Live Large! : 
Affirmations for living the life you want in the body you have now.
by Cheri K. Erdman, Ed.D.

Learn how to think big, affirm your amplitude, and act with wisdom and compassion toward yourself and your body.
In other words, Live Large!

the big idea
 Body image is fluid and changeable.

 fleshing it out

 Body image is a slippery thing. One moment we see our body as acceptable and the next moment we don't. In fact, our body image is very dependent on how we feel about our behavior toward our body. If you've just finished an exhilarating walk and feel good about having moved your body, your body image tends to be positive. If you go out to dinner that night and eat too much, however, your body image will probably take a turn toward the negative. Bad or good, thin or fat -- your body image will change as you change your internal experience of your body-related behavior. Accept your body image as fluid and changeable, because it is.

........affirmation
 ........I accept my changing body image. Excerpt from Live Large!


size-wise action

If you're having a negative body-image moment, try this: do something positive in your body, for your body. For example, take a walk, garden, eat when you're hungry. Learn that you can change your negative body image into a positive one.

I am a fat woman, a woman of size and substance, a weighty woman, a woman who takes up space. I have been fat my entire life, except for those brief moments when I dieted my way into a not-fat body. I say "moments" because having a thinner body never lasted long. The second I stopped being ultra vigilant about calories my weight restored itself, plus a few extra pounds. I have made many attempts to change my naturally large body into an unnaturally thin one.

Several years ago I decided to stop dieting. I can't remember a specific event that propelled that a decision, no magic moment, no "aha" experience. I think I had just had it with food obsession controlling my thoughts and body-hate controlling my moods. Anything, even the thought of forever remaining fat, seemed preferable to that. Besides, my weight wasn't getting in the way of my having anything else I wanted, so why, I asked myself, should I continue to diet?

By establishing a normal relationship with food through a non-dieting lifestyle I stepped away from the culture's expectations of me as a larger woman. I threw off the chains of always having to be "doing something about my weight" -- which meant, of course, always being on a diet.

The consequences of that decision have been miraculous! I have done something about my weight: I've accepted it! And in my process of body-size acceptance I have learned many important lessons that I could not have learned if I had stayed in a dieting, body-hating mentality. The most important lesson of all, however, is this: I have the life I want in the body I already have. And so can you.

How? One way is to read Live Large! a book full of ideas, affirmations, and actions for living sanely in a larger body.

Live Large! brings a positive voice into your life as a larger woman and helps that voice become your very own. Live Large! supports you in your process of body-size acceptance, no matter what your size or shape. Live Large! will help you change your mind to fit your body.

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