Every single day, you have a choice.

First Choice: You can decide to look at life in the ordinary way. This point of view will produce ordinary results: fat is a bad thing.

Second Choice: You can choose an outside-the-box perception. This allows you to see your fat as a doorway to new growth and change.

The trouble is most of us have not realized that we actually have a choice about our perceptions. We think that fat is bad. Done deal. But our fat has never thought of itself as bad. It just is. How we see it makes all the difference.

One more point. Hate is never a good motivation for anything except generating more hate. It should be obvious that hating our fat is never really going to produce anything except more self and body hate. This kind of thinking will never lead us to being thin. Love can only do that. But how do we learn to love something that our entire society hates?

If you want to step out of the ordinariness of unsuccessful weight loss then you need to learn to love the fat you’ve got. If you can love your fat, then you will have a super chance at losing weight and helping your body find its right proportions.

Here is how I learned to love my fat.

The “I Love My Fat” List

1. My fat made me a successful Internet columnist.
2. Facing my fat has made me significantly more self-aware.
3. My fat has been good for my pocketbook. I get paid for doing what I love to do: write, counsel and lead seminars on weight loss.
4. Dealing with my fat has introduced me to hundreds of great individuals that I would never have met if I were thin.
5. My fat was the single most important factor in getting my first book published. No fat, no weight loss, no book (The Prayer Diet). Plus a dozen CDs.
6. My fat has taught me to be more compassionate to millions of people who share my difficulties.
7. My fat has taught me that life is here, now and that I have a choice every day to sit it out or dance.
8. My fat has taught me that everyone can be loved no matter what kind of body they have.
9. My fat has taught me that I am lovable no matter what kind of imperfections I may exhibit.

I invite you to make your own list of the positive things that your fat has taught you. The worst thing that could happen is that you will lose a bit of your self and body hate. The best thing is that you will lose your body hate and be much better prepared to drop those excess pounds.

[Ed. note: Dr. Matthew Anderson is an author (The Prayer Diet), counselor (35 years) and national columnist/expert on weight loss, motivation, self-management and relationships. To find tough-minded, outside-the-box guidance for taking charge of your life and/or your weight including Eating to Kill, click here.]

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