5 Ways To Start Accepting Your Body Here and Now

We can describe body acceptance in three stages:

1. 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.

2. Body Acceptance

   I feel neutral about my body. I do not hate or dislike my body, however I do not love my body.

3. 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!

What is "Joyful Movement?"

Joyful Movement is a new (ish) term that came to light for many through the Intuitive Eating movement.

In the book, Intuitive Eating, Joyful Movement is the 9th principle out of 10 principles total. To learn more about these principles, visit our page discussing each of these principles!

---

Joyful movement comes down to connecting and listening to your body and what it needs that day.

It is less about what we think we ‘should’ do and more about what we need or what our body finds enjoyable and comfortable. This may vary day-to-day or week-to-week. It may depend on the weather, your mood, the stage you are at in your menstrual cycle, your stress load at work, etc.

Finding the “Internal Cues”

Listening to your body and what it needs comes with time and practice. Intuitive Eating is about listening to and honoring your body’s internal cues. A cue could look like a headache, soreness, a hollow feeling in your stomach, the need for a good stretch, etc.

There are many health benefits of intuitive movement! Unfortunately our society (cough cough, diet culture) places a lot of focus on the external motivators for activity. i.e. calories, weight, appearance, etc.

What may make the biggest difference between a short-lived behavior and a long-lasting behavior is your motivation. Long-lasting behaviors often follow internal motivation.

Internal motivation simply means moving your body for reasons that make you happy, you feel good about, and prefer to do. When you move your body for internal reasons, you may find forms of movement that feel awesome that you never would have thought were helpful or enjoyable.

Do a Quick Body Scan.

When you wake up, do a quick “body scan” where you ask yourself “how do I feel?” or “what would feel good to do today?”

It is okay to rest.

Having 1-2 rest days per week are actually really beneficial! Our body needs rest, in fact, for individuals really wanting to get stronger, rest is one of the best things you can do for your body! A small example of this is taking 1-2min rest in between sets of weights. This time allows your body to rebuild and allows you to take a pause and listen to what your body needs- was that set too heavy, do I need to stop, do I need to begin my cool down? Other ways to rest are after being outside for a long period of time. Does your body need water? Does it need fuel? Do you need to do some self-care such as taking a shower or laying down?

Without rest, our bodies do not get stronger and we do not often listen to what our body needs.

Ask Yourself “Why?”

Ask yourself “why am I doing movement?” Is it to burn calories or for an external reason or is it because I enjoy it or it is to relieve stress.

Let the Clothes Fit You!

We may not often think about this, but clothing has a BIG impact on your movement and your ability to enjoy what you are doing or not. It is important to be wearing the right kind of fabrics for the activity you’re doing so you are comfortable and can do those movements without distraction. In addition, the way clothing touches your body may be the difference between enjoying what you are doing or maybe even avoiding movement all together. While you do activity, you do not want to be feeling pinched or like you are always having to pull your pants up.

Rather than trying to ‘fit into clothes,’ let your clothing fit you!

Find a brand that you can get behind. 

There are many awesome clothing brands out there that make size-inclusive clothing. Some we love are:

• Athleta

• SheFit

• Just My Size

• Primadonna

• Dia & Co

• Fabletics

• Superfit Hero

• Good American

---

As you can see, there is more that goes into joyful movement than we think and there are so many things we can do and change up to help us move for internal reasons rather than external pressures. Let us know how you feel once you move for internal joy!

Our dietitians often talk about intuitive movement in sessions because it does directly impact our nutrition, food needs and body confidence. If you’re looking to talk to a dietitian about any and all things related to nutrition and movement, let us know!