Dealing with weight gain part seven: staying body positive whilst trying to lose weight

Can you believe I've actually stuck to something long enough to give it seven installments? I've spread out this series over the past two years now, and each piece tackles something that I've really struggled with to do with my weight gain. You can have a read of all the previous posts here (I've linked them all in the last post).
Today I'm talking about a subject that gets a lot of hate, and seems to be getting more and more recently. There's this weird stigma around being overweight, body positive and trying to lose weight. It's something that people believe shouldn't happen. Either you love your body and want to keep it the same, or you hate it and you want to lose weight. It's very black and white. But for me, being body positive isn't just about accepting your body and loving it for what it is: it's loving it so much that you want to take care of it.  
And that's what I want to do. I'm at a point where I'm trying to maintain a fine balance between losing a little weight and not getting into unhealthy eating habits. Restricting food, cutting out meals and forcing myself to stay hungry because I want to get a certain image isn't what I want to do, and I don't want to lose weight for an image. In our house, we don't have a proper full length mirror or scales. So my weight and the way I look aren't bothering me. I feel like this definitely helps me to stay body positive: I'm not endlessly scanning the mirror to see what parts of me I want to change, or measuring my worth via a number. 
I want to take better care of my body, and losing weight, I believe, is going to be a side effect of that. I want to eat more healthily so that I have more energy and a better immune system to fight off colds (I literally get any passing illness at the moment). I want to try and cut out dairy again, because last time I did it made my joints feel so much better, and got rid of headaches. I want to do more exercise to get fitter and put less of a strain on my organs. These are all things that in the past I know have made me happier. I love creating new recipes that are good for me, and packed full of vitamins, and I really want to get into picking that hobby back up. 
So yes, I want to lose weight, but I want to do it because I love my body. And I'm not saying that loving your body means you have to lose weight; definitely not. I'm saying that I want to make some changes to make my body a healthier and happier place, and there should be no shame around it.
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