With society almost solely judging people by their weight, it is not easy to feel great with a body that doesn’t hold up to the standards that the fashion and beauty industries portray. It is therefor not surprising that the number of people being ashamed of their appearance and hating their bodies is constantly on the rise.
Chances are you, your family members or friends go from one diet to the next, desperately hoping to find the magic solution for immediate weight loss. We all critique certain body parts and wish to be taller, slimmer, prettier and just plain better.
This disconnection from our bodies leads to misery, sadness and an overall feeling of failure and lack of self-control. I know what I am talking about. I used
to hate the body I was born with. My upper arms were too big, I was too short, my nose too broad and my legs too sturdy. I turned against myself and was at war with my body for most of my life. At the age of 10, I developed an eating disorder and almost died because of it. Sadly, my story is far from being an exception.
However, it does not have to be that way. There are simple ways for us to radically change our body image and there is hope for all of us to fall in love with ourselves by embracing our perfect body in its glorious imperfection.
In this post, I’d like to share a few killer ideas with you.
1. Let Go of Toxic Relationships
One of the best ways to instantly improve your self-esteem and your body image is to surround yourself with family and friends who appreciate you for the person you are and not the size of your jeans. Real friends and genuine family members will never even think about reducing your worthiness as a person to your weight, height or other measurements. Use your common sense to sort through the people that surround you and only, and I would like to repeat myself, only give those whose values are truly aligned with yours the gift of remaining in your close circle of trusted allies.
2. Throw away your scale
In today’s world it’s normal to have a scale in your bathroom, isn’t it? It’s even normal to weigh yourself every morning. However, when you come to a point where the number on the scale determines whether your day will be a great one or a horrible one or whether you have been a good person or a bad person, it is time to throw the scale away. Don’t let this little appliance give you either a false sense of control or a way of terrorizing you. Don’t let a thing have such an enormous power over you and your life. Do you really believe that you are just a number? If so, you should really make a reality check.
3. Stop engaging in fat talk
Fat talk is easy, fun and it is such a sociable thing to do, isn’t it? Everybody does it and by now it has morphed into a perfectly normal and socially accepted form of connecting with others. It is great to have a friend tell you that no, you are not as fat as you think you are and no, you don’t have to go on yet another diet, isn’t it?
Yes, but this constant talk about weight, the regular comparisons and the tendency to put yourself down is doing so much more harm than good. It’s destroying your self-esteem, your sense of worthiness and, in my opinion, even your intelligence. I am quite certain that you can find other, deeper, more important topics to talk about with your friends and family than kilos, pounds or food groups.
4. Be a role model
Many children grow up with parents or other role models who are always on a diet. My parents never failed to mention that “starting tomorrow, we won’t eat anything anymore” after we had celebrated a delicious dinner at a restaurant. Sentences like these, as innocent as they may seem in your own mind, can and will influence others on a deeper level than you can imagine.
So, instead of demonizing food and its glorious taste, be a role model and show gratefulness for all the different flavors we’re blessed to be able to enjoy.
5. Ask yourself what really matters
As I went through my many horrific years of being eating disordered, I could only focus on calories, exercise and the abuse of laxatives. Despite my many interests in history, languages, traveling, politics and more, most of my energy was wasted on superficial topics that brought me nothing but grief.
If you’re caught in the same vicious circle of dieting, then give yourself a break or even an intervention and ask yourself: does this really matter? Does having a six-pack or a certain number on the scale really add any value to my life, my relationships or even my career? Am I wasting my time, energy and intelligence by focusing on appearances instead of investing in my whole self?
If you dig deep, you’ll soon come to the conclusion that, yes, you are wasting your time and the things that really matter have nothing to do to with the circumference of your thighs.
6. Make the sane choices
With all the messages that the media is feeding us, it’s easy to forget that we have our own brain. Yes, I really wrote that sentence. We believe that we can lose 15 pounds in five days if we only buy this magazine. We believe that we will have a complete body transformation if we only buy this DVD. We even believe that if we drink a certain shake, we’ll shrink two sizes within a week.
Do we ever stop and ask ourselves what it is we’re buying into? Do we ever consider that those messages are nothing but lies? Yes, but only after we’ve unsuccessfully tried the “magic” pills and the “miraculous” diet plan.
It’s time that we, as women and men, come back to a place of making sane choices. We all know what is good for us. We all know which foods will make us gain weight and which will keep us healthy. We all know what our bodies need, but we ignore our own awareness far too often.
I am challenging you to sit down, dig deep and let go of all the false hopes that the advertisements sell you. I know, I just know, that you will find the right balance of eating, exercising and living within yourself. You just have to let the knowledge in.
Staying sane in a world that is obsessed about sizes, inches and weight loss is not easy, but I know that you, yes you, are able to do it. I know that if you try, you’ll be able to uncover your true self-worth and you’ll realize that it has nothing to do with your weight.
Stay healthy. Stay active. Stay sane.
Featured photo credit: via Shutterstock
