Body Confidence is an interesting topic. Now I’ve not always had the best body, at the moment, I’m at my heaviest but I’ve never not felt confident about my body. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of body size, I’ve always been considered slim. But being slim in the eyes of others doesn’t change how you feel about your body or whether you feel fatter, thinner, more unhealthy than your usual self.
What makes some people feel less confident about their body than others?
Several years ago, I went to a fitness bootcamp in Bournemouth. There I met a woman who seemed really into exercise and eating healthy. She wasn’t yet at her ideal weight but she was working on it. She told me that at one point she had put on a lot of weight and was a lot bigger than she was at that time. She told me that she had felt so disgusted by her body that she didn’t want to go out or see friends, so she went out less and less, until she wasn’t socialising anymore because her friends stopped asking her out. She felt alone and gross and just stayed at home. That is until she decided to take control of her life.
This story has always stayed with me. Mainly because I could never imagine feeling so disgusted by my body I wouldn’t want to go out or do anything. It upsets me that anyone ever gets to this point.
That is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about working with women to feel amazing and confident no matter what their body is like and where they are on their fitness journey. I truly believe that you can’t change your body for the better AND feel amazing about it if you don’t do it from a place of love and acceptance.
That is because if you hate your body, are you going to nourish it with good food? Get enough sleep to help it repair? Do the exercise and physical activity it needs? Or will you punish it with bad food or no food, no exercise or too much exercise or too much sleep or not enough?
I’m sure we have all been there, punished our bodies for how we feel, intentionally or unintentionally. How many times have you tried to fit into a particular outfit, realised it didn’t fit and either starve yourself or binge eat because you felt rubbish about the whole situation?
So, what can we do to change this?
The thing you can do right now to change how you feel about your body is to pay attention to what you are saying to yourself about your body.
What do you say when you look in the mirror?
Is it negative?
Are you only focusing on your flaws?
We all have flaws. None of us are perfect!
Next time you look in the mirror see the parts of you that you love. Focus on them and be grateful for them. Every time you have a negative thought about your body, acknowledge it and replace it with something positive. If you don’t like something and want to change it, for example you want to get fitter, decide what steps are needed to get you where you want, like looking at what you are eating, joining a fitness class or walking to work. Take it one step at a time. You don’t need to implement every change in one go.
And go easy on yourself! If you have a bad day and it affects how you feel and think about your body, that’s ok, make sure it doesn’t continue into the next day.
For more tips on what you could do right now to change how confident you feel about your body, register for my FREE webinar “3 Ways To Feel More Body Confident!”