Love Yourself!

Love Yourself thin, happy, healthy… Whatever floats your boat. We just need to be kinder to ourselves in every way, stop punishing and start nurturing and we need that to begin at home. Before we can achieve the body goals we desire we first need to be comfortable in our own skin and I think this message is loud and clear in today’s society whereas when I was younger, growing up, we weren’t told that being confident starts first by being nicer to ourselves and that happiness comes from within.

I think I very much looked to other people for validation and to my body shape and size to seek other people’s approval. Totally whack and totally out of sync with anything that would have truly made me happy and I love the body positive message these days that we need to be STRONG not SKINNY! Very different to the media promotion of emaciated bodies back in the 90s when I was being impressioned upon and that’s a very hard narrative to leave behind.

I think these days we might teeter on the edge of promoting the extreme in the other direction however which is why I want to firmly remind myself that as well as being strong over skinny we want to be healthy and not overweight too. Body positivity is not about being celebratory over bodies we were not meant to have and loving ourselves by saying we are happy to be in either direction doesn’t actually do us any favours so I’m afraid I DO watch what I eat and I DO exercise and I WANT to have a healthy, normal body shape.

After a baby especially I want to get trimmer and more toned. I’m very body cocious but I want to find this easy equilibrium without dieting in the extreme either. Unfortunately that’s the only way I know how. I tend to under eat if I’m trying to lose weight and instead of helping, it probably hinders as I’m hungry and tired with a newborn… Not a good combo by anyone’s standards.

My mum and I always joke that if we won the lottery we’d pay for a private chef to cook all our meals healthily and then it would be easy to be thin and healthy… Ha! Well… Perhaps you don’t actually have to win the lottery to make the dream a bit more of a reality!

Love Yourself are a premium calorie controlled diet food delivery service who take all the hard work and effort away by bringing you breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as two snacks per day and everything, from whether you’re doing Keto or simply going vegan, is thought of for you.

It’s SO easy and having been gifted a day to try (as well as a one day juice cleanse which was ace for a jump start) I can tell you it’s pretty filling, varied through the day and on top of that it’s all rather delicious too. Expensive (not as expensive as a private chef mind) at £25 per day but a very convenient way of dieting – especially when you’re like me and will undereat when trying to do it yourself. This plan left me full, happy and with yummy dishes I’d not tried before maybe a bit more of an idea as to what I SHOULD be eating when on a diet. Loads as it turns out, just loads of the good stuff!

I was sent a big box that arrived in bags ready for each day!

Now as I mentioned, this service is expensive, way too expensive for me to use on a regular basis but as a one off for before a special event then I would do it for sure. A bit like going to a health farm only less expensive than that of course! That’s not to say I don’t think the service is worth the dollar I had the money then I’d absolutely buy this level of convenience and I wouldn’t say that about everything. Just because you have the money doesn’t always mean it’s worth spending out on but this, I think, is. Its like parking at the station: It’s more expensive than parking down the road and I could easily save a good chunk of money by doing that but I can afford to buy the convenience and so I decide its worth it. If I could afford this then I’d decide this was too. You can’t buy happiness but you can buy an easier ride of some things like parking and food and as a busy mum of four, one being a new-born then this is an excellent way of calorie counting healthily!

One thing that IS within my current budget albeit one I could only do sporadically is the love Yourself juice cleanses which are £20 per day. I’m a mad fan of cleansing like this and with one, three or five day options to choose from it can give you a real jump start for your metabolism – I always find they give me a boost and this one was great, super filling and gave me lots of energy too!

I was gifted the days worth of food as part of a collaboration with love Yourself.