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Project Body Love: my quest to love my body and the surprising truth I found instead
Loving your body is hard to do.
Project Body Love is the story of my quest to find acceptance, respect, and maybe even love for my body after spending a lifetime counting calories and drops of sweat. What followed was a two-year series of experiments that had me mining the depths of my past, dismantling the effects of Diet Culture on my self-worth, taking up bellydancing, posing for nude photographs, and other daring feats of self-exploration.
Far from being a shiny tale of self-actualization, Project Body Love explores the complexity of being a fat person in a thin-obsessed world, and concludes with an entirely new perspective on the elusive body love - one that was surprising, even to me.
This is my story, and so much of it is also the story of millions of other women.
And so.
I wrote this for every woman who has spent too much time trying to make herself small.
I wrote it for every woman who wants to love her body, but can't figure out how.
I wrote this for a world that needs its women committed to revolution and sovereignty and joy, not eating more salad.
Project Body Love is the story of my quest to find acceptance, respect, and maybe even love for my body after spending a lifetime counting calories and drops of sweat. What followed was a two-year series of experiments that had me mining the depths of my past, dismantling the effects of Diet Culture on my self-worth, taking up bellydancing, posing for nude photographs, and other daring feats of self-exploration.
Far from being a shiny tale of self-actualization, Project Body Love explores the complexity of being a fat person in a thin-obsessed world, and concludes with an entirely new perspective on the elusive body love - one that was surprising, even to me.
This is my story, and so much of it is also the story of millions of other women.
And so.
I wrote this for every woman who has spent too much time trying to make herself small.
I wrote it for every woman who wants to love her body, but can't figure out how.
I wrote this for a world that needs its women committed to revolution and sovereignty and joy, not eating more salad.
228 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 22, 2019
4 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Jessie Harrold
3 books16 followersJessie is a coach and doula who has been supporting women to navigate rites of passage and other radical life transformations for over fifteen years. She is the founder of the internationally acclaimed matrescence support program MotherSHIFT, as well as The Village, its sister program for postpartum support professionals.
Jessie also works one-on-one with women and mothers in her practice and facilitates workshops, rituals, retreats, and wilderness quests. She has a master’s in health promotion and a B.Sc. in neuroscience, and her research on women’s experiences navigating health and well-being has won multiple awards and been published in peer-reviewed journals internationally. Jessie’s writing and work have also been featured in International Doula Magazine, Spirituality & Health, Today’s Parent, Green Parent, Motherly, Expectful, She Explores, and more. She is the author of Project Body Love: My quest to love my body and the surprising truth I found instead and the host of the Becoming Podcast.
Jessie lives with her partner in an oceanfront cottage on the east coast of Canada where they raise their children and steward the land.
Jessie also works one-on-one with women and mothers in her practice and facilitates workshops, rituals, retreats, and wilderness quests. She has a master’s in health promotion and a B.Sc. in neuroscience, and her research on women’s experiences navigating health and well-being has won multiple awards and been published in peer-reviewed journals internationally. Jessie’s writing and work have also been featured in International Doula Magazine, Spirituality & Health, Today’s Parent, Green Parent, Motherly, Expectful, She Explores, and more. She is the author of Project Body Love: My quest to love my body and the surprising truth I found instead and the host of the Becoming Podcast.
Jessie lives with her partner in an oceanfront cottage on the east coast of Canada where they raise their children and steward the land.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 26, 2019
I love this book for many reasons, but mostly because Jessie has crafted her story in such a way that anyone who has struggled with weight and body image will relate to. Her journey will inspire you, without a doubt!
July 31, 2019
I bought this book mostly from a place of curiosity, since the author is local and known to me. I don't have major body hang ups, but like most women I do occasionally wish I could look more like that than this, etc. I was unprepared for how this book would simultaneously shake my foundation (in a good way) and also wrap me in a soft quilt of self-compassion. I highlighted and underlined. I had to set the book down a few times to absorb the enormity of what I was reading, once just to cry because something had so deeply resonated with my own journey to love myself. Thank you to Jessie Harrold for being so open and introspective but also for the deep dive into obesity research and intuitive eating.
February 16, 2020
The first part of Project Body Love talks about how Jessie felt about her body as she grew up and into her early adulthood. Having known Jessie personally, I found this to quite eye-opening. Jessie has always struck me as a self-confident woman, an accomplished, brave woman. She travelled to distant countries, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, swam across the Northumberland Strait, taught scuba diving, became a doula, left a job that provided the comfort of a regular pay cheque to start her own company. These are the things I think of when I think of Jessie. I never would have thought that she had such a history of body insecurity.
Jessie published this book in 2018, but although I wanted to support her as a writer, I wasn't ready to read it then. I was still enamored with Weight Watchers. That isn't to say that I don't appreciate WW now, because I do. Out of the diets that are out there now, I think it may be one of the best, and it has taught me things that I will carry with me as I move forward. But I recently started to realize that I can't continue tracking every piece of food I put in my mouth for the rest of my life (nor do I want to). I have started to look more into intuitive eating, and this led me to realize that I was now ready to read Jessie's book.
Thank you, Jessie, for being so refreshingly open in your book, for laying yourself out there in such a relatable way. Thank you for sharing those most vulnerable moments and thoughts.
Jessie published this book in 2018, but although I wanted to support her as a writer, I wasn't ready to read it then. I was still enamored with Weight Watchers. That isn't to say that I don't appreciate WW now, because I do. Out of the diets that are out there now, I think it may be one of the best, and it has taught me things that I will carry with me as I move forward. But I recently started to realize that I can't continue tracking every piece of food I put in my mouth for the rest of my life (nor do I want to). I have started to look more into intuitive eating, and this led me to realize that I was now ready to read Jessie's book.
Thank you, Jessie, for being so refreshingly open in your book, for laying yourself out there in such a relatable way. Thank you for sharing those most vulnerable moments and thoughts.
April 4, 2021
A refreshingly honest and authentic account of Jessie’s quest to love her body, and one that anyone who has something about their body they don’t like can learn from. I really appreciated Jessie’s bravery in sharing her story, her deep vulnerability. Her approach in this quest of tiny experiments is a unique and helpful way to tackle long held narratives we have about ourselves. Her exploration of diet culture gave me a lot to think about as I raise my daughter and explore my own ideas about weight. This book was an easy and quick read, but has a lot of meaning and intrigue.
July 15, 2019
Jessie's book is breathtakingly gorgeous in words. She shares her own reckonings and experiences with such a deft hand -- making really tough situations into a real love story for herself. In turns of prose and poetry, I felt captivated along the journey. If you've ever struggled with your self-image, body consciousness, and sociocultural expectations, this book will calm you down and make you thoughtful and more self-loving.
October 13, 2024
Well...shit. This book really got me!
I'm 46 and I've read countless books on weight loss, body image, self acceptance etc. But this book penetrated the layers of bullshit/fear/shame/self-loathing/pain/frustration/sadness that I've kept maintained for decades. It's so real and honest and oh so relatable!! I love and it hate it equally!! (Because it has made me aware and because it has made me aware!) Read this book!
I'm 46 and I've read countless books on weight loss, body image, self acceptance etc. But this book penetrated the layers of bullshit/fear/shame/self-loathing/pain/frustration/sadness that I've kept maintained for decades. It's so real and honest and oh so relatable!! I love and it hate it equally!! (Because it has made me aware and because it has made me aware!) Read this book!
September 11, 2019
Inspiring and thought provoking.
March 22, 2025
4.5/5 starts but gave it the extra half for Goodreads rating.
So much to think about after reading this. And I might have teared up during the Apology chapter.
So much to think about after reading this. And I might have teared up during the Apology chapter.
September 6, 2024
Giving up on this one. Some of the information is just too trigger RE: eating.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews