Body Positivity Weight Management
“Move together”
According to a report from Common Sense Media in 2015 , "Girls as young as five who think their moms are unhappy with their bodies are likelier to be dissatisfied with their own” and may have even tried dieting by age 6!
Why is this, you might ask? Thinking back to my own personal journey, I watched my mom be negative about her weight and have a negative relationship with food and exercise her entire life. She exercised only as a punishment for eating and to lose weight, not for enjoyment. This led me to develop an unhealthy mindset around weight and food early in life. Another report from Common Sense Media done in 2010 was even more disheartening; it found nearly a third of kids 5-6 years old chose an ideal body size thinner than their own perceived size, showing we can pass these thought patterns down to our kids.
Your Identity & Worth Isn’t Calculated By A Scale.
Weight…. a word that can bring on a flood of emotions for many. Earlier in life, weighing myself would cause me anxiety and add another reason why I shouldn't like myself. Weight can convince us to make unhealthy decisions like not eating enough or even eating more than we should. This can then spiral into undereating or overeating, weight gain or loss, and feeling like a failure yet again. I started this cycle at 12 years old. I even had a hard time saying “thank you” to compliments because of the narrative playing in my head. Feeling positive about our bodies is not easy when we have a world telling us to be a specific size or constant negative thoughts running through our heads.
Love sees you.
A day she let her beauty shine, an internal beauty. She saw my internal beauty as well and complimented me on it, although my internal thoughts did not feel beautiful. She reminded me to say “thank you” to compliments and loved ones will love all of you, inside and out.
Now our whole family talks about how wonderful our round heinies (in a positive way) and can appreciate how many miles my heinie helps me run!
I've been able to be more optimistic about what my body can do and look like. It only took 35ish years (I'm at the ripe old age of 40 now), and it is still a journey for me. I have to take negative thoughts captive and use the ideas and thought corrections I've coached others with. I've coached many people over the years, and the same theme tends to emerge. Our mindset and relationship with food and exercise determine our health and thoughts about our body and weight. Typically it is a full-blown eating disorder or disordered eating patterns that hinder a person from being healthy and cause unhealthy weight gain or loss. Unsurprisingly, "fat talk" tends to be correlated to eating-disorder behavior. When we address the mindset behind eating and give our bodies gentle nutrition and peace with the food, we can finally break free from yo-yo dieting and get on a sustainable path for our health and weight. Join me below for some tips and steps to get on that path of body positivity in a healthy way.
Mindset
It's so important to be able to address emotions without using food to cope. If you experience anxiety, stress, or depression, managing feelings with healthy coping skills and seeking counseling or coaching is a great place to start. Our new program will help you break free from turning to food for emotions and turn to food for your body's needs.
Another mindset hack is to address the food police and avoid absolutes. The food police are thoughts you or others have around certain foods being "good" or "bad." Making food neutral in our minds can take away the "allure" to make the foods we eat an indicator of our identity. It removes shame that may be associated with eating a type of food. For example: "I'm horrible because I had XYZ" would be the food police talking; however, it is not our identity.
Stop nitpicking your own shape. This had to start in my mind first. It wasn't the changing of my body that solved my insecruities. It was how my mind thought about my body. If we don't address that, no matter our body size we can perceive things as still being negative. Especially when we go though life changes that may increase or decrease weight like puberty, pregnancy and menopause. Knowing we all have different shapes and our bodies change is a realistic mindset.
Nutrition
It is crucial to address whether you genuinely listen to your hunger cues. Our hunger and fullness cues are naturally occurring things, but unfortunately, when we have spent years ignoring them, our body adapts, usually negatively.
Give yourself the gift of gentle nutrition. This is where you eat for health, fuel, and enjoyment. By using gentle nutrition, you will most likely choose your foods for fuel and health 80% of the time because you know you can have a particular treat whenever you like. Certain "treat" foods become less alluring, and you end up eating them less but can enjoy them when you want. Using this technique also means you want to feel your best, so you will start choosing and craving food that will help you feel this way. When this happens, you can be at a healthier body weight for your body type and learn how to keep it there naturally and with ease. Our new Weight Management Makeover program helps this happen healthily.
Having a balanced approach is key. Some ideas of what that looks like can be found here.
Movement
Give yourself the gift of movement. When you have a great relationship with food and exercise, exercise is not a form of punishment and something you "have" to do. You will find things you enjoy and may even find yourself wanting to do them. You will also start seeing the benefits of regular movement, both physically and mentally.
We also all have different body types and specific genes. Personally, I am not naturally a petite person, and it is not my build. Trying to restrict to the point of eating what the dietary requirements are for a toddler (900-1200 calories) and overexercising is not sustainable. According to research, Someone who loses weight on a diet has an 80% chance of gaining all of that weight back. This is likely because standard diets do not address a person’s mindset around food or exercise or any medical reason for weight gain or loss.
Sometimes weight gain or loss can be because of medical reasons, not just excessive calorie intake. Make sure to talk to your doctor to rule out any concerns and speak to your dietitians. Including vitamin D and thyroid hormones.
What Is The Next Best Step?
Ask yourself that question. This is a very short blog of tips but if you have any of these struggles:
Lack of energy
Feeling tired of feeling negative in your own skin
Feeling overwhelmed with weight information online and don’t want to do another diet
Feeling out of control with eating
Disordered eating patterns
You want to:
Feel positive in your skin and clothes
Find eating enjoyable and fueling
Feel confident in your knowledge of what is best for your body
Be at a healthy body weight for you
Feel energetic and strong
Then make a choice to stop trying to do this alone or with the next fad diet. You don’t need to continue on the path of comparison, lets, dissatisfaction and social media diet culture! You can be from all of that and learn an simple, enjoyable and effect way to manage your weight. My new program, Weight Management Makeover is specifically deigned to help you do exactly that!
If you want true freedom from dieting and body shaming and want to learn an easy and body positive way to manage your weight, let’s talk! Click the button that says “Let’s Talk” below to schedule a discovery call with me so that we can see if this program is right for you! Let’s makeover more than just weight, but your relationship with food, exercise and your body, too!
