Everyone wants to look their very best on their wedding day, right? For some brides, this can mean beginning harsh diets, working out wildly, and trying desperately to lose all possible extra weight… but why are we trained to do this?

Here are a few reasons why you SHOULDN'T diet before your wedding:

Planning a wedding is stressful enough

Planning a wedding can be seriously stressful. There are so many little details that have to come together, and it's all so abstract and difficult to plan. Why on Earth would anyone want to take all that stress and multiply your crabby factor by a million by starting intense diets and exercising like whoa just before the wedding?

I'll admit that I started a diet just as I was starting to plan my wedding. I hopped on the bandwagon, and my then-fiancé essentially hated me for the two weeks I'd dieted. I was so angry and upset all the time. I'm a fat girl. I have an emotional need for sugar in my coffee, carbs on my plate, and the promise of a delicious dessert to come. Cutting those things out of my life combined with trying to plan a wedding made me into a monster woman.

Learn from my mistakes: for the sake of your relationship, if nothing else, just don't go there.

Your partner loves you as you are

Your partner agreed/asked to marry you just as you are. Not ten pounds down from now, not a few dress sizes from now, but RIGHT NOW. This whole wedding is about you, your partner, and the love you have for each other.

It's so easy when wedding planning to lose sight of that, and to think of it as a big show you're putting on for all you friends and family; the biggest leading role of your life. Don't! Remember what it's all about and you'll find yourself less stressed and happier with the whole thing. Your partner loves the way you look. As long as you both are happy, don't bother with fad diets and exercising until you're sore and grumpy.

Losing weight isn't the answer to getting over physical insecurities

If you're not happy with how you look, chances are you won't be any happier once you lose weight. Happiness is a state of mind, not a size. You can be happy, confident, and beautiful at absolutely any size — you just have to strive for body positivity and self-love. Your value doesn't increase as you lose weight; you're still the same person thinking the same thoughts with the same insecurities.

Losing weight isn't a fix-all for your physical insecurities — the cure lies in your mind. Work on stopping the negative talk about yourself. Stop thinking self-deprecating thoughts and bullying yourself. Chances are, you're your own harshest critic, and it's so important to drown out that Negative Nancy by filling your brain to the brim with positivity in preparation for your wedding day.

Dress alterations can get expensive AF

It's true. So many brides get on crash diets and lose weight and have to keep having their dress taken in more and more and more. Why spend so much on alterations when you can stay the way you are, be happy, and save money by not going wild with the plastic at the alterations check-out?

Thinner does not equal "prettier"

You don't have to be thin to be pretty! Period. In our culture, advertisers have so brainwashed that thinner = prettier, when in reality, fat/chubby babes are just as lovely as smaller ones. Your weight has no effect on your innate beauty. Stop thinking that skinnier equals prettier, because it doesn't. Strive for giving yourself confidence, happiness, and gratefulness; those are qualities you should be worried about, not the number read-out when you step on a scale.

Planning a wedding is stressful. Instead of self loathing and suffering more, engage in self-care, body positivity, and cut out negative self-talk.

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