I've been in nun mode for about a year, and while I've successfully found hobbies and begun to wear dresses and put on makeup and smile at strangers, I'm still 50lbs away from my goal weight. But three months ago, I started online therapy, and my therapist recently helped me realize something mindblowing about my weight loss journey that I want to share with you lovely ladies: It isn't my lack of self control that's the problem. It's my lack of self-love.

Even though I want to be in a loving relationship with a high value man, and even though I know I need to be slim and look healthy in order to achieve that, on a deeper level, I don't love myself enough to feel like I deserve those things. Because of past mistakes, mean comments from classmates, and years-old parental criticisms that I've internalized, I have a mean little voice in my head that says "you deserve to be fat and miserable" or "you aren't good enough for anyone to love you" or "you don't deserve to be happy" every time I try to better myself. So, I self-sabotage every time I get close to achieving my goals.

Trying to diet and exercise away my weight is treating the symptom, not the disease, which is probably why I've been unsuccessfully yo-yo dieting since high school.

Now, instead of punishing my body with starvation diets and overzealous exercise programs (that don't work anyway), I'm working on being kinder to myself -- meditating in the morning, taking a walk in the sun on my lunch break, and listening to self-love affirmations during the day. I'm also doing my best to forgive my slip-ups instead of giving up and having to start over every Monday. It's a slower, longer process (and I still roll my eyes whenever I repeat "I love myself" after the calm, patient voice in my headphones) but it's helping. And I have faith that it will be worth it in the end.

Hopefully this helps you as much as it's helping me!