Have you ever noticed that some days you feel fat and other days you feel slim?  These feelings have nothing at all to do with the actual size of your body.  It’s possible to feel slim when you’re still carrying extra weight, or feel fat even if you are skinny.

Most of the time, it’s your own self-image that triggers these feelings.  When you feel good about your body, that’s a “skinny day” – you feel slim, or at least you feel accepting about your body even if it’s not yet slim.  When you feel bad about your body, that’s a “fat day”.  Changing your outfit, shoes, or hair isn’t going to make you feel better because your self-image is stuck on the “negative” setting.  Your self-image can fluctuate quite a lot from day to day, or even from minute to minute, depending on what else is happening in your life.

In fact, you might have experienced a dramatic shift in your self-image before.  Perhaps you were having a great day, feeling good about yourself and then some teenagers passed you on the street and started laughing.  You immediately thought they were laughing at you, and your confident mood took a nosedive.  For the rest of the day you felt fat and self-conscious and wondered if everyone was laughing at you or thinking badly about you.

Sometimes it can happen in more subtle ways; you suddenly start feeling fat and unattractive and you aren’t sure why.

No matter how it happens, it’s important to recognize that feeling “fat” or unattractive has NOTHING to do with your body and everything to do with your perception of your body.

You can turn this around in just a few minutes by changing your mental outlook, which triggers better feelings, which then improves your self-perception.

Start by recognizing that the problem is stemming from inside, not outside.  The size of your body isn’t the issue; it’s your own attitude toward your body.  Once you recognize this, it’s much easier to start feeling better.

Next, deliberately reject negative thoughts and feelings about your body.  If you just heard yourself