When it comes to accepting your body, do you need serious help? What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see a body that you love and accept? Or do you pick it apart and criticize every little thing you want to change about it? I guess it’s the latter.
A vast majority of people, especially women, don’t like what they see in the mirror. In fact, they downright hate what they see in the mirror. I would have included myself in this majority until about 5 years ago.
Now, I’m not saying that I always like what I see in the mirror, but the difference is that I have learned to appreciate what I see, instead of hating it, criticizing it, or separating it.
For years I had this crazy morning “ritual” where as soon as I woke up and got out of bed, I would walk to the bathroom, pull up my shirt, look in the mirror and see the size (or flat ) my stomach was. He was my morning fat check.
If I was dieting or depriving myself, or I had started a new meal plan or fat burner, I would check how much weight I was losing, or if any of the pudge had miraculously disappeared overnight. If I was crawling with my food, which happened more often than not, I would lift my shirt, look at my swollen belly, pinch my love handles and curse myself. Then I would vow to do it again and be “fine” for the rest of the week.
I started making a running list in my head of all the foods I needed to stay away from, and I promised that I would only eat salad for the next 10 days and nothing else.
It was exhausting and seriously detrimental to my well-being AND my self-esteem.
I really hated what I saw every time I looked in the mirror. It didn’t matter if I was thinner than the day before or not. I would criticize, poke, pinch, prod and shake my head in disgust. This is how I started each day for years, so you can imagine how I went into the day feeling like myself.
Sometimes I ended up on the floor in a ball of tears when I tried to get dressed for work. Other days I felt on top of the world, because my stomach was flat that morning, and I was convinced that whatever I was doing was FINALLY working, and I was a rock star. But that didn’t last long, because I would end up overeating and breaking that big, noble promise I made to myself, again.
Basically, the Morning Fat Check set the whole mood of my day in motion. Most of the time it resulted in a shit-ton of (excuse my French) devastation, feeling like a failure and riddled with shame and disappointment.
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The big turning point for me was the day I called a close friend of mine for support. I was in tears about how fat I felt. I hated how I felt about myself. I was gaining weight and feeling bloated, bloated and defeated. And I was out of control with my diet. I was looking for someone to be in the trenches with me; feel my pain.
But what I got instead was a healthy dose of tough love. The words my friend spoke in that moment stung me, but they were the catalyst that deeply healed my years-long battle with food and my body,
After waiting for me to finish whining and complaining, she said calmly, “I’m sorry you feel this way and are struggling, but this obsession with your body and your weight is so self-absorbed. GET OUT AND BE OF SERVICE STOP feeling sorry for yourself, get off the couch, go out and make a difference in the day of someone who needs you. ”
BAM! It felt like a stinging slap to the face, but it was just what I needed to hear. Those words set off a series of events that radically transformed the way I view myself, and my body, to this day.
So here are some of the steps I took to learn to accept my body and stop hating myself. This change didn’t happen overnight, but I was committed to the process. It took patience, consistency and a lot of courage.
first step to accepting your body
Stop the Morning Fat Check + Daily Weigh Ins
The first thing I did was ditch the Morning Fat Check and I stopped looking in the mirror so much. As hard as it was to break, it was a huge part of my healing process.
Beating up my body and criticizing it in the morning left me feeling depressed, angry and defeated. No matter what I did, it was never enough.
And the crazy thing is that the weight can vary from 2 to 7 pounds in a given day depending on circumstances, so I never knew what it was going to be like day to day and that created even more hassle. uncertainty and feelings of failure.
So I vowed to stop lifting my shirt, looking in the mirror, and stepping on the scale first thing in the morning. I even threw away my scale!
At first, I had a huge fear that I would spiral out of control if I didn’t constantly check my weight or height. Because how could I gauge whether I was getting skinny or not? How would I know how I felt that day and whether I was meeting the weight loss goals I set?
But, what began to happen, as I let go of the constant stream of outward-focused self-deprecating comments and lifted my shirt up every day, was that I began to focus on others incredible qualities I had and how I felt inside. There
Step two of accepting your body
Appreciation of the practice
This was a powerful practice for me in body acceptance. Once I let go of my Morning Fat Check and started focusing on how I felt internally, it made me feel truly connected to the miracle of my body.
As a nutritionist, yoga teacher and former massage therapist, I have studied the body a lot. I understand a lot about its anatomy, what foods are good for it, etc., but I have always treated my body as a separate entity. I was disconnected from it and felt like it was a burden.
I hated that it wouldn’t listen to me, or drop the weight I wanted, when I wanted it. I felt like my body was constantly betraying me and I was in a constant battle with it.
Each day I committed to writing and/or saying three things to my body that I appreciated about it. I focused on his strength, his health and all the little intricacies of my body that I often don’t think about because they’re running on autopilot, literally.
This practice alone helped me create such a deep appreciation and respect for my body that I no longer wanted to say mean things to it. And the funny thing is, after a while, my clothes started to have a looser fit. Go figure.
Step three to accepting your body
Tune and listen to your body
As I mentioned in step two above, I was in a constant battle with my body and completely disconnected from it. By practicing daily appreciation of my body, I was also able to become more attuned to it.
I started paying more attention to the subtle and not-so-subtle signals my body would give me. After eating, I would notice how I felt in my body, not what my mind thought about what I ate (which was usually full of judgment, by the way).
It would help me feel connected and give my body what it needed. I stopped listening to the madness in my mind and the outside world, and started listening to the wisdom of my own body.
This usually looked like resting more often, not working as hard, or pushing as hard and doing a lot less than I was used to. I relaxed more and ate less because I paid attention to my satisfaction cues. I slowed down at meals and enjoyed what I was eating. I was getting faster and I wasn’t overeating like I normally would when I was distracted.
All of this has led me to feel much more comfortable in my body. I would check and see what type of movement would make me feel good instead of what I think I should be doing (to lose weight). Some days it was yoga, some days it was hiking, some days it was weight lifting.
My body appreciated this. And that started to change. It didn’t happen overnight, it was a journey, but one that was so empowering and transformative.
Remember: Accepting your body takes patience, practice, and consistency.
Not only was I implementing these steps daily, but I was also doing additional personal growth work to examine my skewed relationship with food. Although everything is connected, I had to dig deeper to get to the heart of some of my eating behaviors.
These 3 key elements mentioned above were the most powerful and really helped me come to an incredible acceptance of my body, which resulted in my body normalizing to its natural weight over time.
So, I’m curious; How do you feel when you look in the mirror? What has your experience been like with your body? Do you feel accepting of your body? Or do you hate it and fight against it? would love to hear your thoughts and comments below.