A lot of people think that dieting is what will keep your eating and thus your body in control.

And I don't know about you, but I felt the most out of control.

Paradoxically, when I was dieting, I constantly felt crazy around food and anxious and just off

because I didn't trust myself.

I didn't trust my body.

I didn't honor its cravings. I didn't listen to it.

Hi, hello. Welcome to Mary's Cup of Tea, the Self-Love podcast for women. Though all self-lovers are

welcome here. I'm Mary. I write and speak about self-love and am best known for my book, the gift of

self-love. And I also host retreats for women.

And this is the podcast that will inspire you to love yourself.

Real quick, before we dive in, I want to make sure you know about my book, The Gift of Self-Love.

It's a workbook to help you build confidence, recognize your worth, and learn to love who you are.

It's available anywhere books are sold, thousands of people, and learn to love who you are. It's available anywhere

books are sold. Thousands of people have it, love it, and have told me that it has greatly

benefited their self-love journey, and I hope it'll do the same for you. And now let's get into the

podcast. I wanted to circle back to some OG conversations, meaning the topic, the message that got me started

in sharing about self-love with you, and that is this concept of body positivity. I have not spoken that word in a really

long time, or that phrase, and there's many reasons for that. I won't go into that right now,

but for simplicity's sake, today I wanted to talk about how to be body positive or body neutral, body accepting, whatever best

floats your boat, and pursue health. This is a question that I get a lot, and it's also one that

relates to me personally, and I'm assuming that it's pretty relevant to where you're at in your journey,

just kind of talking to some of you and knowing how I've grown and how you've all grown

...