Weddingbee boards

Yes, but it has taken a LOT of work.  Not the diet/exercise/discipline kind, but learning to treat myself well mentally and emotionally.  I used to be really obsessive about healthy eating, to the point where I wasn't eating enough and keeping myself hungry and on a perfect diet was my life.

Learning to love and accept myself (and others... I found I couldn't stop judging myself if I was judging other people's bodies, too) was MUCH, MUCH harder work than staying away from sweets or exercising every morning and requires just as much maintenance.

I'm the same as Cash000. I love the way I look in clothes, but not so much nekkid.

When I'm clothed I secretly check out my reflection in store windows and see that ideal I have in my head staring back at me; when I'm in my birthday suit in front of the bedroom mirror all I see are wobbly thighs and love handles.

@jackieee: Thanks!

It was definitely a long process, but I think there were some things that helped a lot out of the gate.  The first thing I did was throw out my scale.  I went about 18 months without weighing myself... though there was definitely some backslide/cheating when I used a measuring tape every morning instead.  But the truth is that that stuff was not helping me be healthy.  Knowing that I was working out regularly but not to the point of injury helps you be healthy.  Eating nourishing food helps you be healthy.  Beating yourself up because you had a dessert doesn't.

I had been obsessed with calorie counts and trying to measure what I was eating, and I cold-turkey stopped looking or counting and tried to forget and concentrate on intuitive eating.  Basically the idea is to eat when hungry and stop when full, and eat what your body craves.  If you listen, you can really tell when you need protein or veggies or when your body is saying "no, man, that chocolate is exactly what you need."  (I have more cravings for broccoli than chocolate now, to be honest... thugh most of my cravings are for things like steak or peanut butter... things that have nutrients but I don't eat all that often.) Judging yourself and trying to eat what you "should" eat totally circumvents this process.  It was really terrifying, but I actually do still eat really healthy because it makes me feel good.

Other things that helped were doing some serious weight training.  Building muscle made me realize that seeing the scale # go up (when I did see it again, months later, after a year of weight lifting) could be a good thing and that I could be strong and healthy without fitting into a waiflike mold (I do not have a waiflike body naturally, not at all).  And reading positive body image stuff helped.  Some of it was fat acceptance movement blogs, like Kate Harding's blog (I'm actually not overweight, but the message of not judging people or criminalizing weight really helped me help myself as well as helped me be less of a jerk).  There's some really amazing posts she's written about tying so much of your self worth into your body and eating.