Poor body image, or negative body image, can look different for every person. At a baseline, it is having a difficult time accepting or being kind to your body. Negative body image impacts us in so many ways. Therefore, it is worth addressing.
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5 Ways To Start Accepting Your Body Here and Now
We can describe body acceptance in three stages:
Body Tolerance:
I may not like my body how it is, there are parts I can say I strongly dislike, but I am working to “tolerate” those parts.
Body Acceptance
I feel neutral about my body. I do not hate or dislike my body, however I do not love my body.
Body Appreciation
I can say there are parts of my body I love. I feel no disgust or hatred towards my body. I appreciate what my body looks like and what it allows me to do.
What stage do you feel you are in?
It is also normal to oscillate between a couple phases, especially when this is new to you.
Lets talk about how to get to the Acceptance stage.
Consider this to be the neutral stage. There will be hard days and easier days. Sometimes we feel confident and other times we may want to hide. However, the majority of the time we are feeling neutral about our body. Recognizing your body for what it allows you to do is sometimes an easier part of this stage than learning to like how you look. For example, I’m grateful I have two strong calves because I am strong and can jump, leap, and squat.
There are always triggers that make it difficult to stay in the stage of Body Acceptance. At first, you may need to spend more time being mindful of these triggers and go out of your way to make your relationship with your body a more peaceful space.
Here are 5 things you can do to help yourself remain in the space of Body Acceptance, and perhaps work towards Body Appreciation.
1) Diversify Your Feed
Social media plays a big role in how we view and love our own bodies. You may not realize it, so check your social media feed now and see what kind of bodies are represented? Do you see mostly one gender or sex? Mostly one color body? Do you see any self-expression such as tattoos, colorful hair, etc. Do you see mostly fitness influencers or models? Do any of these bodies look like yours?
I am not one to celebrate social media, I do see the harm it does to many of my clients. However, social media has also been an amazing space for positive change and movements. There is a body positive movement going on right now. There are amazing influencers, dietitians, and therapists on social media doing their best to portray positive messages and reduce fat shaming or body stigma. You can diversify your feed by following more fitness influencers in different body sizes, or add to the food accounts you follow with intuitive eating dietitians!
Social media can become a positive place, but it is all in what you make it. If there are things that are too triggering, you may find it more healing to get off of social media all together. You could also delete your page and create a new account, a fresh start! I can say without shame, my Instagram is mostly intuitive eating/body positive, cats and plants!!
2) No More Comparing
How many times do you catch yourself thinking, “I wish my X looked like theirs.” Or even wanting to ask “You are so thin! What do you do?”
These are thoughts are so negative and can cause a lot of hard to your mental health and relationship with your body. Reframing these thoughts, or using distraction can be one way to combat them.
Reframing is the act of changing the first thought that comes to mind when you are comparing your body to someone else’s. For example, the original thought is, “I wish my body looked like theirs.” Reframing this looks like saying to yourself, “They are a beautiful person, but just because my body doesn’t look like theirs doesn’t mean I am not beautiful also.”
It can be hard to not compare or have negative thoughts about your own body. One thing you can do today is write a list of parts of your body you like or are neutral about. Too often we think about the things we don’t like about ourselves. Let’s spend a little bit of time complimenting ourselves!
3) Wear Comfortable Clothing That Fits Today
The clothing you wear is a constant daily reminder of how you feel in your own body. Do you have clothing in your closet that fits you at your current size? What about under garments?
Its not uncommon to hold on to old clothing that fit you while you were a smaller size. Often our clothing has a lot of memories attached to them and it can be hard to get rid of them. However, hanging onto clothing can be harmful to how we perceive the way we “should” look. Donate the clothes, you will always have the memories.
When shopping for clothes, tell yourself that you are going to buy clothes that fit your body today.
4) Affirmations
Consider what you tell yourself throughout the day, what is your self talk like? I know affirmations sound cheesy, but imagine if we talked to ourselves all day in affirmations?
Changing how we talk to ourselves can help change the way we believe in ourselves and how we view ourselves. Having trouble thinking of affirmations? There are a lot of Apps that create affirmations for you and send you them throughout the day as a little reminder.
All this step is asking you to do is talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend. You’re worthy of that.
Here are some affirmations to get you started:
“My body is worthy of nourishment.”
“I’m not going to sacrifice my mental health to have the perfect body.”
“I am strong.”
“I am powerful.”
“I am worthy of love.”
“I give my body permission to change.”
“I will allow myself to find pleasure in food without feeling guilt or judgment.”
“I am beautiful no matter how my body changes.”
“I am worthy of the time spent on healing my relationship with food and my body.”
Looking for more ideas? Check out our Instagram for more affirmations.
5) Focus on Health, Not Weight
Believe it or not, health does not equal weight.
Research has shown that it is more important to focus on what makes us feel good and healthy behaviors than changing your weight. If you’re wondering what this could look like, think about things you can ADD to your life such as more whole foods, more walking or stretching, more socializing with friends and laughter.
When you limit or restrict yourself, this typically moves us further from positive changes than not and has more opportunity to hurt our physical and mental health.
Body Appreciation is a journey, no one gets to that place overnight, or even over the course of a year. It is something to work hard at every day but ultimately leads to the most freedom and happiness.
We’re here cheering you on!