10 Steps to Help YOU with Body Acceptance
Body acceptance is hard. For some of you, the idea of body love might even seem impossible.
Healing your relationship with food and your body takes TIME and INTENTIONALITY.
Obsessive food and body thoughts and negative emotions about your body are holding you back from living your best life. Think about the amount of time you spend lurking in body struggles and food preoccupations. This is time and energy that could be used for so much more!
Here are 10 steps that will move you closer to accepting your body and finding freedom from body image issues.
1. Unfollow accounts on social media that post nearly naked selfies, before and afters, and new diet trends.
This is an extremely important step especially if you are on social media multiple times a day. Looking at these pictures is probably making you feel unworthy and creating the internal message that you need to be smaller to be acceptable.
Take a moment to think about what these different diets or health and wellness accounts make you feel.
When I went through my Facebook and Instagram feed I was surprised how many diet accounts, trainers, #fitspo, #cleaneating #whateverdietcrap I was following.
After unfollowing unhelpful accounts that were making me go into a shame spiral, I began to follow body-positive folks that reassured me I am not crazy and that life isn't all about being thinner.
We live in a world with all different types of bodies and they are ALL ACCEPTABLE and BEAUTIFUL.
Some of my favorite Instagram accounts include:
Tess Holliday – Plus Size Model
Ashley Graham – Plus Size Model
Chrissy Metz – Plus Size Actress (This Is Us!!)
Sonya Renee Taylor – Body Positive Advocate
Jessamyn Standly – Plus Size Yoga Teacher
Taryn Brumfitt – From The Body Image Movement and the Documentary Embrace
Jes Baker – Body Positive Author and Blogger
Virgie Tovar – Fatphobia Advocate
4th Trimester Bodies– A project photographing real women’s postpartum bodies
Eff Your Beauty Standards – Promoting Body Positivity at all sizes
Celeste Barber - Body Positive Comedian. She is my newest favorite. I laughed for seriously 20 minutes looking at her feed.
Megan Jayne Crabbe - Body Positive Author
Go edit that social media feed right now and feel the relief of not having to diet, be thin or have the perfect body!
2. Get rid of all the clothes that don’t fit you.
Let me let you in on a little secret: Your self-worth is not based on the size of your clothes.
Yes, I know you are hoping to someday fit into those clothes hiding in the depths of your bedroom or hanging in your closet, but I promise you that looking at those clothes every day is only inflicting body shame and hurting your confidence.
You have the right to go into your closet in the morning and feel good about any of the pieces you choose because they fit, are comfortable, and add to your confidence.
Think about what those clothes that don't fit are making you feel on a day-to-day or weekly basis and begin going through and donating those clothes that aren't making you feel your best.
3. Buy a few pieces of clothing fit well, are comfortable and you feel really good in.
Part of accepting your body is dressing your current body.
Don't wait until you lose the weight to go shopping, but get some clothes today that make you feel comfortable, pretty, and confident.
Dress your body in clothes that align with who you are right now. As women, we self-sabotage when it comes to our outward appearance. We maybe think we gained this weight so it is our problem and punish ourselves by wearing clothes that don't fit or clothes we feel uncomfortable in.
As an act of self-care (see #9) go buy some clothes you love, and feel comfortable and confident wearing.
4. Listen to body-positive and anti-diet podcasts.
Listening to podcasts is a great way to submerge yourself into a positive culture of body acceptance and body kindness instead of diet culture and body shame.
This is such an EASY way to cultivate a DIFFERENT MINDSET about your body and your health.
Listen while you drive or while you get ready in the morning. Even if it's just 15 minutes of a good podcast you have the opportunity to learn something new and apply it to your new paradigm of health, wellness and body acceptance.
Some of my favorite body-positive and anti-diet podcasts include:
Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison
Body Kindness with Rebecca Scritchfield
The Body Love Project with Jessi Haggerty
*It's Not About the Food with Dr. Stephani Reinhold
*How to Love Your Body Podcast from The Body Love Society
*The Embodied and Well Mom Show with Lindsay Stenovec
Don't Salt My Game with Laura Thomas
Fearless Rebelle Radio with Summer Innanen
5. Read body acceptance, body-positive, anti-diet, intuitive eating, and health at every size books.
After spending years reading about different diet and nutrition plans my brain was trained to think about food, health and my body in a very negative way. Therefore, I had to learn a new paradigm of health and taking care of my body from a place of self-compassion instead of within the pursuit of thinness.
So I read a ton of books and memoirs today to keep me motivated in pursuing health from a place of body love instead of body shame.
Knowledge is an extremely powerful resource that allows us to make different choices and therefore have different outcomes within our life. As a chronic dieter, you probably know WAY too much about health foods, macros, portion control, or whatever and you are going to have to spend some time learning a different paradigm.
Some of my favorite intuitive eating and body love books include:
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works 3rd Edition by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
Intuitive Eating Workbook: 10 Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon
Body Kindness: Transform Your Health From the Inside Out and Never Say Diet Again by Rebecca Scritchfield
Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life by Kelsey Miller
Mothers, Daughters and Body Image by Hillary McBride
6. Engage in a form of movement you enjoy a few times a week.
Studies show if you engage in movement you really enjoy it improves your body image and how you feel in your body.
Just think about it for a moment how you feel about your body after you completed some sort of exercise or workout? You probably felt really good. Moving our bodies in some way makes us feel good physically and emotionally.
It is very important to assess your motivation for exercise. As a chronic dieter, my relationship with exercise was not very positive because in my mind I associated exercise with dieting and trying to lose weight. I would start a new diet plan and often simultaneously start a new exercise regimen. This new exercise regimen looked different every time but ended as a failed attempt to get fit. Sometimes I would join a gym or more often recommit to going to the gym and doing a specific workout plan. This is great in theory, but it would leave me feeling overwhelmed and like a failure when I would make it only a week or two.
Within the last 6 months, I have completely changed my relationship with exercise. In my brain, I disconnected exercise from weight loss and have found movement to have a whole new purpose in my life.
Now I exercise because I enjoy it and I want to feel strong.
Begin experimenting with different types of movement to figure out what you really enjoy. This could be as simple as taking a walk, riding bikes with your kids or trying out a different type of exercise class.
Work towards changing your mindset around exercise and why you do it.
7. Learn about intuitive eating and begin practicing it!
Intuitive eating is a way of eating that relies on your body’s inner signals to tell you what, when and how much to eat. It is likely that dieting over the years has highjacked your ability to tune into and trust your body's natural signals.
Intuitive eating offers 10 principles to guide you towards normal eating, attuning to your body, ditching dieting forever, and not feeling crazy around food.
Here are two of my favorite blog posts explaining the basics of intuitive eating.
8. Stop beating yourself up about your body shape or your body flaws.
Keep track throughout one entire day of all the negative body thoughts you have about yourself as well as what it may be that triggers those negative body thoughts.
Triggers might include: getting dressed in the morning, looking in the mirror, going to social events, getting pictures taken, meeting new people, going on a date or to a special event, having a job interview, getting pregnant, or recovering from having a baby.
These are all potential body shame spiral moments that might leave you thinking you need to change your body through extreme dieting AKA deprivation and making you feel crazy about your body.
Most diets start with negative body image thoughts, so it is super important to assess what your thoughts are doing for you throughout the day.
9. Engage in meaningful self-care.
Self-care is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days. As a counselor, I think self-care can take on a lot of different forms depending on the individual.
Practicing basic self-care like eating regular meals that taste good and keep you energized, sleeping 7 to 8 hours a night, drinking water, and taking showers/other hygiene habits are extremely important. If doing some of these basic tasks is difficult that is okay. I want to encourage you to take some time and think about why some of these tasks are difficult and what gets in the way of you taking good care of yourself at the most basic level.
Another form of self-care might look like doing hobbies, hanging out with friends, taking some time for yourself every week, engaging in personal growth activities or a variety of other things.
As a counselor who specializes in working with women, I hear from clients all the time how difficult it is as mothers especially to take care of their basic needs (because they are so busy taking care of everyone else) let alone take time for themselves and engage in meaningful self-care activities.
You are worthy of time to yourself and for yourself. I guarantee taking some time to do something really enjoyable is going to help you feel less crazy in and about your body.
10. If you desire to change your health and feel GOOD in your body do one small habit at a time.
Our habits are an extremely powerful indicator of our behaviors throughout the day. Over the years I have heard it takes 30 days to form a habit, so if you do ???? for 30 days you will be set up for success.
This is a myth. For some people it might take 30 days for others it might take 60 or 90 days to form a specific habit. Everyone is different.
Just because you don't want to diet anymore doesn't mean you can't improve your overall health. The problem with diets is they encourage people to change multiple habits regarding eating behaviors all at one time and this often includes restricting food which only leads to negative feelings and eventually bringing in some form or fashion. The other issue with diets is they promise quick results and this is absolutely
So if you are looking to improve your overall health and how YOU FEEL IN YOUR BODY working towards one SMALL habit at a time is a great way to do this. Maybe you are wanting to drink more water or begin exercising or eating a few more veggies. Create one small habit and build from there.
BONUS: Practice Body Gratitude
Our bodies perform incredible functions for us every day. The last tip in cultivating body acceptance is to be grateful for the abilities of your body and what your body allows you to do in this world. Our bodies do SO MUCH for us on a daily basis and I am the first to admit I rarely take the time to think about this.
Make a list in your journal today or even on your phone of all the AMAZING things your body allows you to do.
If you are looking to heal your relationship with food or your body let’s set up a free 15-minute consultation! I know taking that first step is scary, but I promise it’s totally worth it!
In Body Love,
Chelsea
Encounter Counseling offers in-person counseling in Grand Junction and online counseling state-wide in Colorado including Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs.
