I’m going to start by saying this- I don’t love my body and I don’t aim to- I accept it. Most days, I don’t think about it at all- it’s a body. This has been mentally freeing for me after so many years of obsessing over it and it is this mindset shift I’m discussing.
I stopped aiming for love
I think the standard of loving your body is too high- it’s almost unachievable and it seemed to me to be an unnecessary thing to strive for. Love is an emotion- it doesn’t serve a lot of practical purpose- you can love someone and not like them. You can love a person and merely accept things about them. As much as “love your body” is constantly sold as an achievable goal, it didn't feel all that achievable to me. The more I questioned what I wanted out of this whole mental journey, what I realised was - I just wanted it to not be a constant issue in my mind. I wanted to take pictures and meet up with people and live my life without constantly thinking of my body- There’s a term for this of course, it’s called “body neutrality” and that’s what I aimed for.
I examined my feelings
We come to dislike our bodies for many reasons, most of all the constant reinforcements of negative thoughts by everyone from family members to media and to random people on social media. Body standards for women have always been impossible, from when it was “as thin as possible” to when it became “perfectly proportionately curvy”- it’s important to step away from it all and examine how you really feel about your body and why.
I started consuming media that reinforced where I wanted to go to
From body positive instagrammers to doctors that constantly spoke up about body shaming, I followed a wide range of fashion bloggers at all sizes and started to realise that I didn’t care so much about it on other people, so it was silly to care so much about it when it came to myself.
I removed myself from spaces that served to shame
I believe in positive reinforcement over shaming and I had to remove myself from any space where there was any kind of shame regarding body size or shape.
I delved into health research
Health is the main tool used to wield hate against bodies and you can start to internalise that message - I know I definitely did, so I started to educate myself more on habits and health and guess what? Habits matter more than size.
I focused more on habits rather than numbers
I zeroed in on things I could improve on in my habits and focused my attention on that, rather than scale numbers- I ate more actual food- drank less sugar - started to aim to eat more protein, which is still a struggle. Focusing on habits made me feel good.
I think body acceptance is a process and you can get far along into the process and be set back by someone asking “weren’t you happier when you were slim?” or “omg you have put on so much weight, should I take a picture and show you”. Acceptance is a journey but it gets easier and it’s something you can take with you through all sorts of changes- whether you lose or gain weight, whether those changes are temporary or permanent, you can learn to accept yourself at each point of the journey!