Body Positivity: An Exercise in Loving Yourself
This month’s blog focuses on tips to help you love and appreciate your body! Body shaming is running rampant in our culture today. Unrealistic images of what we should look like constantly surround us in the media. It is often discouraging and frustrating to feel like you can’t meet this unattainable image of effortless perfection that everyone else seems to.
Body positivity has been a life long journey for me. I always felt that I was too large and I was constantly either on a quest to become smaller, or on a hopeless rampage of self-loathing and over-eating. It is something I work at every day. Some days are better than others.
The good news is, despite the prevalent body shaming present in today’s media, body positivity is now starting to trend! Corporations, celebrities, television shows, Instagram accounts, and regular people have begun to promote self-love, real bodies, and, acceptance across the board! Today I’m going to share some of my favorite quotes, lessons, pictures, books, and resources that I have collected over the years to help me remain body positive.
1) Appreciate Your Body
Focus on appreciating the function of your body, and everything your body allows you to do. My body allows me to walk, run, sing, eat, play sports, draw, a million other things. The way my body looks is a very small part of it. I don’t like the way my legs look, so often I try to exercise my appreciation for my legs by thinking about how my legs allow me to play hockey, run, and dance, I focus on how strong and powerful my legs are, rather than being upset that they are not thin enough. When I think about my legs like that, I always feel better.
2) Positive Self Talk
Our brain loves patterns. In fact, every skill you have in life starts by building a pathway of neurons in your brain. The more we do the skill, the more “traveled” the pathway becomes, and the easier it becomes for us to successfully carry out that task. It’s the same way with our thinking habits. Thinking positively and talking to yourself in a kind way is difficult, but it gets easier the more you do it. You have to practice it, and build that pathway in your brain, just like any other skill in life. Something that has really helped me is an exercise known as creating affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements you write, speak, or think about yourself or a situation you are in. Affirmations can help ground you into a positive and calm state of mind. It has really helped me change my inner dialogue.
Some affirmations I like to say include:
I am capable and smart.
I can do anything with some practice.
I take good care of myself.I love myself.
It is okay for me to mess up sometimes. I allow myself the grace to make mistakes.
Affirmations can be things that are already occurring in your life, or things that you want to speak into existence. Sometimes I will write them down and repeat them. Sometimes I will look into the mirror and say them aloud. Find what works for you and try it! Its amazing.
3) Make your exercise routine something you ENJOY doing.
One of the keys to a healthy lifestyle is consistency. Exercise is great because it helps make your body strong and it releases endorphins that make you naturally feel amazing. :) However, if your exercise routine is something you dread doing, you won’t be likely to do it, and you might start to resort physical activity all together. For me, I play hockey three times a week. It is very physically demanding, but its so fun for me and ensures that I get three intense ( and more importantly FUN) work outs in a week.
Create an exercise routine that works for YOU. Pick something you like doing, and try to do it a few times a week. It doesn’t have to be hitting the gym or running miles at a time. A healthy exercise routine could be:
Hiking a few miles and looking at the fall colors
Going to a Yoga Class a few times a week
Dancing
Gardening during the summer
Playing in a recreations sports league
Kayaking a few miles
Walking your dog
Skiing
Snowshoeing
Swimming laps
Zumba, spin, or step classes
Rock climbing
Biking
4) Eat Real Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants.
This is the best nutritional advice I have ever been given. With all of the fad diets out there telling you how, when, and what to eat, it can become very confusing and frustrating to know if you’re doing the right thing. If you follow this rule, it makes it way more simple and fun to eat healthy. Eating a plant-based diet ensures you will get be getting a lot of nutrients. Eating “real food” means that your food either 1) came from the ground ( like a plant) or 2) has a mother ( animals or animal products like fish, lean meats, or eggs). This will help you to avoid processed foods and sugars. It’s also a lot easier for you to digest real food, because that’s what our bodies were designed to do! And lastly, not overeating and focusing on intuitive eating will help prevent you from too many calories and unhealthy weight gain. Intuitive eating means that you eat more mindfully, and pay attention to when you are actually hungry. It may take some time to get in touch with your body and really listen to when you are hungry, and not just eat for fun or due to boredom.
5)Surround Yourself With Body Positivity
The media can either be your best friend or your worst enemy when it comes to loving yourself. The good news is, you can CHOOSE what shows to watch, books to read, and accounts to follow. Try and tailor your media choices to platforms that promote self love and body positivity.
Some amazing resources I have found in the media include:
Ariella Nyssa Instagram Account:
I love following this account on Instagram. Following people who love themselves and promote others loving themselves always adds a nice piece of positivity to my timeline. As I’m scrolling through posts, it keeps me grounded and helps quiet the voice in my head that says I need to try and become something I’m not.
Body Positive Power:
This book gives perspective on a woman’s struggle with body image and the constant disappointment of trying to mold your body into perfection. It is very empowering because it focuses on how to LIVE your life fully and encourages people to not wait until they have the “perfect” bikini body to go to the beach, wear that dress, or just do anything in general.
As the cover says
” Because life is already happening, and you don’t need flat abs to live it!”
Aerie:
Aerie is a subset of American Eagle, a brand that is very popular with adolescents and adults alike. Aerie has started to model women of all shapes, sizes, and colors. They have made a strong effort to be inclusive of all women, and have even addressed different health conditions by featuring women with diabetes, vitiligo, and mobility supports. It’s important for children and grown women alike, especially women who deal with medical conditions that set them apart from the general population, to be represented in the media.
Right: A diabetic woman straps her insulin pump to the back of her Aerie bra.
Left: A woman with mobility supports wears an Aerie sports bra.
A woman with vitiligo models an Aerie bra .
Queer Eye:
This show is AMAZING. It is a remake of the old show, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” from years ago. This show focuses on the adventures of the “Fab Five,” a team of five gay men - an interior designer, a life coach, a chef, a cosmetologist, and a stylist. The Fab Five helps teach men AND women ( a new addition to the show) how to love themselves, inside and out. The show quite literally transforms people’s lives by giving them a fresh haircut and clothes, redesigning their living space, teaching them how to cook and eat healthy, and how to be confident, all with the overall mission being self-love and acceptance.
Instagram Vs. Reality:
I love the instagram vs. reality movement that is taking place! Every day people and celebrities alike are sharing side by side photos of themselves using different poses, lighting, and angles, to show how different our bodies can look in photographs. So often, people only share a “highlight reel” of their lives on social media. It makes it easy to forget that things aren’t always as they appear. These photos help to lift some of the illusion that can come with social media.
These photos help to lift some of the illusion that can come with social media. These photos help empower people and encourage them to love their bodies, instead of placing unrealistic expectations upon themselves.
It is important to recognize that men face a lot of body shaming and unrealistic expectations from the media as well. It’s not only women. Men often feel pressure to be big, tall, and strong.
In closing, I think I can summarize most of what I’ve said above in saying that body positivity comes from a place of loving, accepting, and appreciating yourself. It comes from training yourself day in and day out to show love and gratitude to yourself. It comes from a place of realizing that no one is perfect, everyone is a real person, and being real, relatable, and vulnerable- that is what’s beautiful.
-Dr. Ricci