Our relationship with our body is so important, it is literally our vessel for life.
Working out, what we eat, the internal dialog we keep, gratitude, and more are all crucial to creating a healthy relationship with our individual bodies. Implementing a healthy lifestyle is important to avoid burnout and sickness, and will help you achieve more confidence in your body.
Getting to a point of feeling secure in your own body these days is tricky.
We are constantly seeing ourselves, obviously. In various reflections, in mirrors, when we are naked, in our phone’s front camera, and in photos. We are also constantly seeing other people. When we are out in the world, on social media, on TV, and in movies. The types of bodies we praise seem to follow a similar format—thin, tall, fair-skinned, and so on–but the types of bodies we see daily are all different & unique. With the amount of variation in people, why are there only a few body types that are continuously praised?
It is hard to let go of these trends/expectations and celebrate our differences, but it is a pivotal step towards feeling good in your own skin. There are fundamental practices that are going to get you closer to feeling confident and becoming truly healthy without trying to look like someone else. It will take time and energy and some days you might feel stuck or like you’re going backward, but every day is a new opportunity and worth the effort—you only get one body, might as well love the one you are in.
1. Food
Food is the essence of the body. The saying “you are what you eat” doesn’t come from nowhere. When you eat a well-rounded diet you will literally feel like a new person. If you are drinking every night, eating fast food for every meal, eating too much sugar/salt, and drinking coffee all day long to keep you going, you are going to feel like crap at the end of the day…and probably the next morning too. A well-rounded diet is not about cutting things out. (Restrictive behaviors always have the opposite reaction and are mentally defeating-boo)
Drink your beer/coffee, eat cake and comfort food, but lead with intuition. I can bet your intuition is not going to tell you to eat cake for every meal, and the reason is that you won’t feel great! Your body doesn’t want to feel bad, it just wouldn’t make sense, that’s why you get indicators such as a stomach ache after eating a family-size bag of potato chips in one sitting…by yourself.
Listening to what your body needs is definitely something that is going to need some practice, but when you start to learn and understand your body, it will literally tell you what it is craving. Don’t deny those cravings because of a diet. If you are craving sweets, eat the sweets. You will intuitively know when to stop. (or you won’t listen and you will feel sick and pay better attention next time) Your body comes with all these indicators built in, but they have been suppressed along the way. We have let marketing and convenience take over. These cues still exist, it’s just about finding them again. What we eat is so so so important. Mentally and physically our relationship with food impacts our body image. If intuitive eating is new to you, I would recommend reading Intuitive Eating by Elyse Reach and Evelyn Tribole. It is absolutely not a diet or a fad, it is just about understanding your body’s cues and eating in a way that will make you physically and mentally feel better.
2. Exercise
We have all been taught that exercise is important. As an adult, the idea of exercise has morphed into this cliche script of “going to the gym”. You most certainly do not need to go to a gym to be physically active. A variety of activities for thirty minutes a day, three/five times a week is perfectly acceptable-and probably more fun! You do not need to be in a gym for two hours every day lifting and running a marathon. The thing about exercise is it can be so varied. My mom always told me all you need is a pair of sneakers to get going and she wasn’t wrong-don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.
3. Exist within your life!
Working out definitely ranges from having your own personal trainer/at-home gym and every workout resource you could ever imagine to just those sneakers—but one is not better than the other. So stop watching the Kardashian’s fitness routine if you have three kids, two dogs, and a full-time job and not millions of dollars. You need to find a fitness routine that reflects you and your lifestyle. Following people online who look too good to be true (because they probably are—surgery, filters, and so on are very deceiving) is going to shatter your body image, and probably lead you to give up exercise altogether.
Most fitness accounts you see on social media are not real. People have filters, surgery, and butt pillows put into their leggings for “before” & “after” gym photos. (You can even have filters on videos now, so just because they are moving does not make it real) An active, physically fit and healthy body can be any shape and size and will look different depending on who you are. We don’t all need to have the same exact body shape and size, it’s fun to be different!
4. Stop connecting exercise to weight loss
Being physically active is not solely about losing weight, having a flat stomach, or being the fastest runner. Let go of what you think fitness looks like and start fresh, with a new perspective. Health comes in all shapes and sizes, and exercise can be a thirty-minute walk around the block or a ten-mile run depending on who you are. It is important not to compare any form of exercise. Let moving your body be about the health benefits and not about changing things. (And having fun-duh!) If changes naturally occur, cool… but prioritize being active to feel better, not to look like someone else’s body, or to focus on your body’s appearance drastically changing.
Some fun alternatives to going to the gym:
- Have a solo dance party
- Go on a nature trail
- Take a hike
- Swim
- Jump rope
- Yoga
- At-home workouts (there are so many free resources, and YouTube has great options)
- Bike ride (a real OR stationary bike…you don’t need a Peloton bike)
- Sign up for a local sports team (soccer, volleyball, basketball…all are fun, and it’s a great way to meet new people in your community!)
5. Stop comparing
Comparison is the thief of all happiness, especially body positivity. Seeing someone else’s beauty without questioning your own comes from your inner dialog. Let someone be a rose and you be a daisy. One is not better than the other, they are just different! (And both are super beautiful) If you are focusing your energy on the parts of your body you are unhappy with, your attention will stay there. Imagine if every day, instead of focusing on the things you don’t like about your body, you focused on being grateful for those things and stopped being so judgmental.
Some things might change…
Your confidence, the clothes you wear, whom you think you are worthy of hanging out with, or the love you think you deserve are all things that will probably change.
That initial impulse to compare yourself will start to fade as well—that’s the confidence kicking in. This is not something that is going to change in one day or overnight-unfortunately. You are going to be re-writing a narrative that has been going on for some time. Some ways to improve this established relationship can be to…
- Speak to yourself with kindness and grace.
- Let go of judgment. This has to be across the board. Judging others can be just as detrimental as judging yourself, and your own body. Allow people to be different, and bask in your own differences.
- Praise your differences… see differences as a celebration, not a separation.
- Stop being so hard on yourself— you’re doing great!
- Live every day with gratitude to be in your body.
- Become more aware. So many of us go through our days and don’t even hear what we are saying, to others or to ourselves. If you are saying what an ugly hag you are on the daily, that is going to wear you down mentally until you get to a point where you can’t believe anything else. You will become closed off and uncomfortable in your body.
- Take note of how your speak to yourself and then change it. “My stomach is so fat and I have so many rolls, I have to wear loose clothing because what if someone sees how tight my pants are and that my stomach folds over them” could change to “I would rather have these rolls than not enjoying myself. I love my rolls because of what they represent, and if someone sees my stomach rolls I don’t care. I am confident, rolls are part of life, and they are beautiful.” I guarantee if you put the work into becoming aware, you will catch all the tiny things that you might say to yourself that are harmful to your body image. You can then be able to stop yourself and start leading that dialog with grace and kindness.
- Check-in with your body. Ground yourself. Feel the weight of your body on whatever surface you are on, and experience the senses around you. The chill on your skin or the fuzziness of your sweater. Unlock your jaw, take your tongue off the roof of your mouth and loosen your shoulders. Calm your body, take a few deep breaths, and do a mini-scan. Start at the top of your head and without trying to change anything scan down your body to check in and see how it is feeling. Notice any tightness, stillness, or anything that might be present.
Food, physical activity, grace, and kindness are just the stepping stones to having a confident body image. Making changes for you, instead of someone else, is the only way to live. Do something every day to move your relationship with your body forward. Implementing something that makes you feel good every day, small or big, will start to mentally change your preexisting perspective and open your eyes to how important your body is to you and how much you can, are allowed to, and should love it.
Reminders!! ❤️❤️
What we see is not always reality:
Implants, clothing (like butt pillows, push-up bras, etc.), fillers, botox, filters, lighting, makeup, and so on can sway your perception.
Not that any of these are bad, it’s just a reminder that there are so many factors to think about before comparing yourself to someone. If you are idealizing something that is not “real” and wondering why you are doing everything they seem to be doing and not getting the same results, it’s probably because they’re not sharing the whole story. If someone with a tummy tuck, a personal trainer, and a personal chef is claiming a tea gave them a perfect body—and you have been drinking this said tea for a whole year and look no different—chances are you have been had. It can be helpful to look at social media as an alternative reality. Of course, there are parts that mimic reality, but it as a whole is not real.
Social media can be like those multi-flavored cheesecakes with all the different slices. You are given a chocolate peanut butter slice, so you assume the whole cheesecake is a chocolate peanut butter flavor. What you are not seeing are the raspberry & strawberry swirl slices, the original slices, and the caramel slices. You are only seeing the chocolate peanut butter.
This slice is not bad or lying to you, it’s just not everything. Likewise, it can be very harmful to only see edited bodies and “perfection” all day long.
Your perception of what a body “should” look like will be continuously opposed by what you are seeing in your own mirror. If you’re only seeing peanut butter slices of cheesecake all day you forget there are a million other flavors in the pie! (I’m not talking about actual cheesecake anymore here, but I hope you get the point)
Adding a variety of individuals to your feed can help keep that perception closer to what bodies actually look like, and how different they all are.
Try making your social media feed a bit more diverse with people of different shapes, colors, and who support differences and authenticity, they don’t try to hide it.
Some of my favorite accounts I follow on Instagram that praise diversity & authenticity are…
@shaneburcaw & @hannahayl
@jvn
@forpeoplewhobleedhttps://www.instagram.com/forpeoplewhobleed/
At the end of every day, what I am realizing is that nothing amazing in life is fast and or easy. Work, time, persistence, and effort are usually required to achieve greatness. This is no different when considering your relationship with your body and deciding where you want to take it. I have had so many ups and downs with my body image and health. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how far I have actually come and how much I have improved that relationship. It can be easy to get caught up in all the things you still want to change and never take the time to pause and reflect on all the progress you have made.
Take it slow, get to know your body, look at yourself, feel your body–like literally feel yourself… physically give yourself a hug, or a pat on the back, or a mini massage, be kind, show love & gratitude, and grow from where you are. All bodies are beautiful and all bodies are individuals. Bodies come in different shapes and sizes. Why be them when you could be you?
Some body affirmations to try:
(You can say these out loud, to yourself, while looking in a mirror or whenever you’re feeling the perfection pressure)
I am exactly whom I am meant to be.
I feel confident in my body.
My body is strong and does so much for me.
Every part of my body is beautiful and I cherish all of it.
I love my body because it allows me to ___________.
My body carries me.
My body is a vessel of life, and I love living in my body.
Life is _______ in my body.
I am soft and strong.
I am _______ & _________.
My body is unique, it is an individual, and looking different is fun and important, and exciting.
I fill my body with love, kindness, and grace.
I forgive myself.
I share my body with the people I love. I hug, hold hands, console, laugh with, and cry with.
I love with this body.