Your body image (i.e. the way you view/perceive/think about your body) might need work.
I’m making that assumption based on the fact you are on my site reading this post, because maybe you landed here after looking at my social media. And maybe you landed there after seeing a reel I made about the way I practice as a dietitian, which is an anti-diet, anti-elimination, pro-food approach. Maybe you struggle with a history of chronic dieting and poor body image.
Here’s why body image work is important: when we follow disordered eating patterns, or food behaviors that become rigid rules (i.e. our inner food police), we often follow them to achieve a certain body size.
Almost all of our disordered food behavior is a manifestation of the fact we are telling ourselves we aren’t small enough.
Sometimes though, this isn’t immediately obvious. Many of the things we think about ourselves aren’t instantly recognized as body dissatisfaction. Here’s a list to help you decide if there are signs of body dissatisfaction in your day that you weren’t realizing.
1. Repetitive diet behavior
This means repeatedly looking for or employing diet practices, such as participating in programs, plans, subscriptions, cleanses, etc. in order to find the magic solution to shrinking your body. This is often cyclical or “up and down” and nothing really works long-term.
2. Compulsive Exercise
Exercising not for enjoyment but doing so in fear of weight gain. Or, for punishment for eating certain foods or even to make up for eating certain foods. Along with this also comes the feeling that you don’t deserve to eat if you haven’t done a workout or burned any calories.
3. Body Checking
Body checking is the repeated checking of your body or your weight. These behaviors could include weighing yourself daily or multiple times per day, fixating on body parts in a mirror, pinching or squeezing parts of your body, repeatedly assessing the fit of clothing, comparing your body to the way it looked in the past, feeling for fat or bone.
4. Negative Self-talk
What you say (in your head or out loud) to yourself about your behavior that is often irrational. For example: “If I eat that, I’ll blow my diet,” “I have no willpower,” “I shouldn’t eat that,” “I don’t deserve that,” “I am so stupid,” “I am unhappy with myself when I eat this.”
Appearance = self-worth
You tie your value to the way you look and the size of your body. A simple way of explaining this would be you thinking you are more worthy in a smaller body and less worthy in a larger one. This could be worthy of love, acceptance, acknowledgement, or whatever you desire. You think your body size is the most valuable thing about you.
Constant body thoughts
Always thinking about your body and how you feel about it. Whether it’s bad or you’d feel better about it if you lost weight. An example might be if you are shopping and see something on a mannequin and think, “I could wear that if I lost weight.” Immediately the thought is about your body, not the item.
Self-surveillance
Thinking about your body is a constant for you in every position you are existing in – whether it’s standing up, running, walking, sitting down, driving, etc. You are always thinking of how your body looks in that position. You are hyper-aware of how your body looks at all times.
Self-objectification
Viewing your body as an ornament, not an instrument. You don’t give credit or thought to what your body can do outside of how it appears. Often we give a lot of thought to how we think other people are viewing our appearance, and we internalize that perspective.
Social Comparison
Comparing the way you perceive yourself to the way you perceive others. This is often called ‘comparison syndrome’ and it is so present in everyday life, especially with the strong use of social media. We think other bodies are better than ours because they are smaller, more toned, or getting more attention, and we think we are less than because we don’t see ourselves that way.
Body Avoidance
This simply means avoiding having to deal with or see your body the way it is. This could show up as avoiding mirrors, wearing baggy clothing, avoiding touching others, avoiding touching yourself, not looking at or allowing photos to be taken of yourself.
My job is to help you improve the way you see yourself, live in your body, and nourish that body.
🔸 How can I help you? By identifying thoughts and behaviors that are contributing to this overwhelm you feel every day about living in your body. Then nurturing positive thoughts, acceptance, and redirection of that energy into behaviors that’ll make you FEEL GOOD.
If you feel like taking that step, schedule a discovery call with me so we can talk about what that new perspective will look like for you and how to get there!