Love Languages: How influencer Justine Shera ditched the diet and learned to love her body

"I want people to see me out there living my life, having fun, wearing what I want and being comfortable in my skin." Photo / Supplied

In a world where we are somewhere between toxic diet culture and body empowerment, the Love Languages series had to include body love. Justine Shera has battled with toxic diet culture since she was a teenager trying to lose weight society deemed "unwanted" but now, in her 40s Shera talks to Lillie Rohan about the secret to loving your body and her Instagram page "My Balance Project".

"I felt very free, liberated." Are the words Shera chose to describe her decision to break away from diet culture. "It's a hard task and one that takes a lot of focus and challenging what you have always known. I had finally had enough and decided I was going to do things differently. I started to nourish myself, walk and challenge negative self-talk. The negative self-talk is extremely damaging."

Shera takes pride in working with and sharing plus-size friendly brands with her followers

Shera realised feeding into negative thoughts had never helped her so she changed her perspective. "I would think, no, Justine, we don't talk like that anymore and I learned to replace the negative internal commentary with positive."

It resulted in major changes to her life and a 35kg weight loss over 10 months but what happened to her self-worth during that time was much bigger.

Shera started posting her journey on Instagram, using the name "My Balance Project", and initially her weight loss triggered a lot of attention, but as her following grew so did her awareness of her influence resulting in the change of her focus. Shera's content is now about self-love, body confidence, and size inclusiveness.

Around 11,000 people on Instagram are now resonating with Shera's story - proven by the daily messages she receives on the platform. But one message that stood out was from a woman who said she hadn't worn swimwear since she was a teenager and after seeing multiple pictures of Shera at the beach, in a bikini, playing with her son, she found the confidence to do the same. It resulted in the woman's children being so excited to have fun with their mum in the water.

Shera shared her excitement with the woman but reminded her followers, it wasn't Shera who made her do that, but her. She found the confidence and she pushed herself to do it.

Shera isn't scared to flaunt a sassy swimsuit at the beach and it's something her followers love

A lot of Shera's life is on social media and I had to ask if it ever made her feel vulnerable. "I feel vulnerable all the time. Instagram can feel like an alternate world, and sometimes I forget there are people I actually know in my community seeing my content, so I definitely think carefully about what I post. My son is also reaching technology age, so I'm careful about respecting his privacy as well."

So why does Shera continue to do what she does? "I do it because I feel it's important to see different body types on social media and to challenge the norm when it comes to what is 'beautiful' or 'healthy'. I want people to see me out there living my life, having fun, wearing what I want, and being comfortable in my skin. It also makes women feel less alone knowing there are others who go through the same things."

The name "influencer" can carry a bad reputation, but Shera wants to change that.

Last Christmas she put her energy into raising money for Gabby's Starlit Hope, a local charity that donates Christmas presents to sick children and their mums on the wards at Taranaki Base Hospital and the cancer ward at Starship. After quadrupling her initial goal of $1000, Shera's local Toyworld refused to accept the raised money and donated the toys instead. This resulted in Gabby's Starlit Hope being able to share the Christmas spirit to even more people.

Justine Shera with just some of the toys donated to Gabby's Starlit Hope.

She also sells clothes she has been gifted and donates to the community. In the past two to three months, she has donated approximately $700 to Women's Refuge.

Shera's positive mindset is what makes her so unique in the body love movement, "Changing your mindset is everything, and I'm not going to tell you it's easy, but it does get easier. Loving and accepting your body is a practice – you have to retrain your brain & stay on top of it. There will be days when it's harder than others but it's worth it."

Her number one body love tip is, "focusing on what my body DOES rather than how it looks. What if I focused less on the size I wore, and more on what my body could do? What if I tried less to lose weight, and harder to be fit enough to go on big hikes with my family?" Last year they walked the Kawakawa Station Walk - approximately 30kms over three days. It was a very proud moment for Shera and this summer they will take on the Queen Charlotte Track as a family, a 70km hike spanning 5 days.

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A post shared by Justine - MY BALANCE PROJECT (@mybalanceproject)

On her list of goals Shera is also focusing on where she puts her energy next, she wants to include her family, business, and herself. "As women, we often forget about ourselves in our list of priorities. I have changed a lot in my life in the past two years to make space for myself."

And she's excited about the direction of her Instagram content and helping more women. "Women's relationships with their bodies are extremely complicated. This comes from years of conditioning and being told by society repeatedly that you're not good enough. I want to challenge that, and help women understand that they are worthy – just as they are."

For more from Justine Shera, you can find her on Instagram under the name 'Mybalanceproject'