How To Love Your Body Even When You Don't Like It
You can love your body even if you don’t like it much.
I know – it sounds crazy, and maybe a little contradictory.
I know how you feel.
You stand in the mirror looking at your body, wishing you could get rid of the belly fat. Hoping that if you cut back on your food intake you can just lose the last 10 pounds.
You try new diets every other month only to feel dissatisfied with the results and wish that you could just eat a donut.
I’ve been there and I know it is frustrating.
I’m gonna tell you right now, your body is worthy of love and respect.
Even if you want to lose weight.
Even if you feel like you need to “tone it up.”
Girl your body does so much to carry you through life that it deserves your love even if you don’t like it much .
You are so much more than your body.
Here’s How To Love Your Body Even If You Don’t Like it
THE EYE-OPENING BODY NEUTRAL APPROACH
Body neutrality is a concept that acknowledges that you have a body but you don’t feel overtly positive or negative about it.
At one point I hated myself so much that I would have benefited from being walked through a neutral approach to my body. It isn’t useful to try to convince yourself that you are in love with how you look when you truly aren’t.
You know that feeling you get when you can tell someone is lying to you?
Yeah it’s the same when you lie to yourself.
The Body Positivity movement is giving women strides to accepting their body but it brought with it a different layer if issues. It has been hijacked by brands using it to promote “diversity” when in actuality, the diversity is severely lacking.
Women still feel a pressure to fit a certain standard. Although the movement says “embrace your curves”, you’re left wondering if you are curvy in the right places.
You CAN get to a place of love and feeling confident with what you have, but it takes a layered approach and may not start with feeling of elation and love. Having a history of poor body image is something that takes time, possibly therapy and a lot of grit and faith to breakdown
FOCUS ON WHAT YOUR BODY DOES FOR YOU
Instead of spending so much time focusing on your appearance learn to appreciate your body for what it does for you.
Let health and wellness drive you
“Build a better booty"
“the secrets to abs"
“How to lose 10 pounds in 10 days"
It’s time to drop kick those quick fix approaches into the trash. They no longer have a place in your life.
Your goal is to focus on building your overall wellness with a holistic approach. When you become more of aware of how connected your mind, body and soul are, it becomes much easier to feel confident inside your body.
Read: How To Build A Body You Can Be Proud Of
* since this article was written, I’ve learned to see that this statement is ableist. It’s less about what your body can do for you and more about finding what works for YOUR current body. How you can learn to live in the body you have now, without feeling ashamed
STOP ASSAULTING YOURSELF WITH INSTAGRAM “fitspo”
Sounds harsh, but that is what you do when you fill your feed with people you think you can never measure up to.
Not every woman will vocalize it, but read the comment section of popular Instagram accounts. People proclaiming their jealousy in a “positive” way, wishing they could get a body like that, even wishing they could BE that person.
When I first started a fitness journey, I wanted to improve my health but I quickly fell into the trap of of building an “ideal” body.
This is super embarrassing but I measured my waist and hip every other day to determine if my booty was getting bigger and my waist smaller.
I was obsessed with appearing healthy and being someone else’s body goals that I scrolled through trying to identify a body that I could achieve. I had stopped being a style blogger because it fueled my depression, but I was quickly letting my health journey pull me there too. The difference is I had already made a commitment to myself to keep from spiraling again. I learned the hard way that following a bunch of super fit and edited bodies ain’t gonna benefit you.
So I hit unfollow.
Over and over again.
If you scroll through and feel jealous, hit that unfollow. Try only following people who provide inspiring content and promote body confidence.
STOP CONVINCING YOURSELF THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU
Sure, you might want to lose weight. There is nothing wrong with that but there is something wrong with obsessing. There Is something wrong with restricting yourself so much that you can’t eat a cookie without spiraling into guilt and shame.
Be realistic and be kind to yourself.
Having a belly or jiggly thighs is perfectly normal.
Making yourself crazy by trying to get rid of cellulite and scars tells your brain that there is something wrong with you.
Even if you lose 30 pounds tomorrow, you will still find jiggly bits, so that can't be your motivator. (please don’t try losing a large amount of weight in a short timeframe)
There isn’t anything wrong with you. Even if you identify as fat, there is nothing wrong with you.
The weight stigma that we have built up in society has to end. Don’t shame yourself – get relentless about your health and stop focusing on what you look like.
START EMPOWERING YOURSELF WITH Body Kindness
Being super harsh and mean to yourself is not going to serve you.
Can you imagine going to someone you loved and saying. “Eww your belly fat looks gross”
“You’re ugly”
“Ugh, you need to lose weight”
How do you think that would be received When you say things like this to yourself you internalize it. You are training yourself to believe that you are truly unworthy.
STOP TEARING OTHER WOMEN DOWN
Just like you need to learn to be kind to yourself, you need to be kind to other women.
“I can’t believe she is wearing that!”
“eww that looks awful on her”
“She should use makeup to cover her scars”
“She looks like a hoe”
These are destructive phrases that I’ve heard women say about other women. These are things I said when I was super insecure.
It’s (unfortunately) common for women to do this to each other – and it is usually a sign of jealousy. You see beauty in someone else and instead of uplifting it, you tear it down.
This is not ok, and it directly effects your view of yourself.
Meanness is not something that is going to serve you. Ultimately, it will tear you down too.
STOP REWARDING/PUNISHING YOURSELF WITH FOOD
Your relationship with food is intrinsically connected to your relationship with your body. Having trouble with binge eating junk food arises from restriction.
You tell yourself you don’t deserve that donut or that cookie.
But because you’ve restricted yourself so harshly, you fall into an uncontrollable urge to eat the banished items. Then you end up feeling terrible, both physically and emotionally.
Food is not for reward or punishment of actions and doing so is a fast track to feeling shame.
Food is fuel and enjoyment. You can eat delicious nutritious food, but you can also indulge in loaded french fries and tacos
LEARN TO BE COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED FROM OUTSIDE STIMULATION
It’s ok to be unavailable.
I am a recovering people pleaser who used to say yes to everything.
How can you begin a process of discovery without taking time to be with just yourself. Free from distractions and disconnected from the internet.
Try creating a morning routine where you take 30 -60 minutes to yourself.
Silence is the best way to be in tune with your own thoughts and reflect on how you actually feel.
I meditate for about 5-10 minutes in the morning just by silencing all the other voices. I allow thoughts to come and go as I sit quietly, usually with my eyes closed.
Taking that time to just exist is totally critical to your self awareness.
WHAT TO TAKEAWAY
If you cheated and skipped to the bottom, here’s the gist:
try body neutrality
focus on what your body does
stop following Instagram “fitspo”
stop telling yourself there is something wrong with you
empower yourself with body kindness
stop tearing other women down
stop rewarding and punishing yourself with food
learn to be completely disconnected
