Five Steps To Better Body Image
Are you stuck in a cycle of wanting to lose weight and improve your body image? You wouldn’t be alone if you are. Diet culture is ingrained into us from a very young age and we are constantly told that our bodies are not good enough the way they are. Everywhere you turn the magazines, celebrity images, Photoshop images – social media can be very bad for this – are in your face. How are you supposed to know what a regular human body looks like?
Diet culture hasn’t just told us that our bodies are not fit enough, toned enough, or good enough, they have told us our teeth are good enough. There used to be a time that we would get braces put on our teeth to straighten them, but now those regular braces aren’t good enough and we turn to invisible braces because God forbid anybody should know we are working on appearance improvements. You need to think better about your body and we have five steps to help you to have a better body image.
Stand in front of the mirror
To have a better body image you need to become better acquainted with the body that you have. Instead of constantly striving for a body that the magazines tell you should have, look at the glory of the one you’ve already got. Face up to the way your body looks and get to know it: lumps, bumps at all.
Get off social media
Instead of spending your time staring at Instagram models, you should spend your time appreciating the way that you look where you are right now. There’s nothing wrong with striving for health, but if you’re striving for a certain number on the scales or certain clothing size, you are going to be so disappointed. Get off social media and stop pretending that you’re going to be exactly like somebody who has a different height and a different weight and a different shape to you.
Throw away the scales
It’s a counterproductive thing to do if you’re trying to lose weight, but if you’re becoming obsessed with the number that you’re going to be on the scales, throw them out. Weigh yourself at the gym if necessary.
Learn what normal is
Is a normal body the one that you see on social media or is it the one that you see under your clothes? Instead of listening to magazines telling you that you have to strive for a whole new body just to go to the beach you should just put a bikini on and go to the beach. People are different in different ways and it’s very important that you understand that what you see on social media isn’t necessarily a reality.
Separate feeling low on confidence with feeling fat
Fat is not a feeling, it’s a descriptive word, and there are plenty of people out there who are perfectly happy with an extra bit of weight on their bones. If you feel low confidence, you should explore that in-depth instead of panicking that you are going to look less than desirable to others. Love yourself first.
I like all these tips and that you encourage people to love themselves and their bodies. You really have to love yourself for who you are, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep eating kilograms of this cake every day and lying on the couch. Loving yourself also means taking care of yourself.
Active lifestyle and regular exercise are essential parts of self-care that you shouldn’t neglect. At the same time, you don’t need to become an athlete. All you need is to find something you will love and do it regularly. Many people really enjoy swimming as it is not such exhausting as other sports.