Hate your body? Your body is not the problem.
I have consistently weighed myself for years - when people show me old photos of myself, I can usually give you a vague idea of how much I weighed at that time. I have often looked at pictures of me at university and wished I was that weight again. Even after all the work I have done on body acceptance, catch me on a bad body image day and I will be wishing for a smaller body.
What’s screwed up with my thinking is that even in those old university photos, I wasn’t happy with my body - always wishing to be thinner, taller or have skinny legs. This goes to show that my body image issues have never been about my body…it’s always been in my mind. My smaller body never made me happy then - why would it make me happy now? This is one of the biggest reasons I decided to turn away from the endless pursuit of weight loss. Why continue to dedicate so much time to something that will not make me happy?
We are always conditioned to find issues with our body - women who say they are ‘body confident’ are often told they are big-headed or over confident. I have seen many women have to deal with nasty comments for daring to put up a photo of their size 16 body in a bikini without apology. The overwhelming sentiment in society is that we should all be worrying about our body or trying to change it.
We know that comparing ourselves to others is counter-productive, but comparing yourself to a younger version of yourself is often worse. This comparison we make between our current self and an idealised version of a past self we idolise, admire and protect can be very destructive.
This constant need to out-do our past selves can lead to poor decision making based in anxiety and fear. It might lead us to choose the fad diet or the crazy exercise plan in the hope of changing ourselves quickly in order to match up. It eats away at our self-esteem and leads us to make poor decisions.
The thought of treating ourselves with kindness can be a hard concept - giving ourselves the grace to regress or backtrack can feel scary. I have only started to heal my relationship with food after I gave myself the permission to stop following the crazy diets and perhaps gain weight.
The irony of this self-comparison situation is that we tend to remember only the positive aspects of our lives - I remember all the fun parts of being at uni but I actually was in a bad relationship with a much older man, not eating properly, never exercised and drank plenty of alcohol every night. I would wager I’m much healthier now both physically and mentally even though I’m in a larger body.
Think of this when you look back at those old pictures - instead of solely focusing on your body, think about your overall health. Think about the following aspects;
Physical health - were you exercising regularly? Were you eating a good quality varied diet? Were you getting enough sleep and rest?
Mental health - were you in a good frame of mind? Did you ever feel down? Did you feel resilient?
Social health - were you being kind to your friends and family? Were you maintaining these relationships well?
Occupational health - did you enjoy your work? Did you have a good work/life balance?
Intellectual health - did you spend time pursuing new hobbies and activities? Did you ever spend time reading?
Spiritual health - were you being your authentic self?
If you find self-comparison hard to give up then reframe the comparison towards the positive aspects listed above - things that are going to help you moving forwards. Instead of comparing your current body to your ‘peak’ old body, think of when you ‘peaked’ in kindness or resilience.
As human beings we often focus on the negative but you should always give yourself credit for the leaps you have made in your life. Your body might not be exactly how you want it, but look at everything else you have achieved in your life. Our lives involve far more than what our body looks like!
Give yourself the permission to love and accept your present self, you have grown and changed (as we are supposed to!). Your world has changed around you and your body has changed too, that’s okay. Focus on nourishing the body you have now with varied, delicious foods, positive movement and plenty of rest.