There are going to be days when you don’t like your body.

Maybe you catch yourself in the mirror from an unflattering angle. Your pants feel tighter than usual. You see a photo of yourself that you don’t like. Or you simply wake up feeling uncomfortable in your own skin.

On those days, it can be incredibly tempting to think, I need to do something about this. The possible choices run through your mind at warp speed: cut out carbs, skip breakfast, start exercising more, or download a weight-loss app again. You tell yourself that you’ll finally feel better once you lose weight.

But what if the answer isn’t to try harder to change your body? What if the thing you actually need on a bad body image day is to respect your body?

You don’t have to love your body. You don’t even have to like it. But you can choose to treat your body with kindness, care, and respect, even when your body image isn’t great.

Body Hatred Isn’t a Path to Better Body Image

When you’re unhappy with your body, diet culture can make it seem like self-criticism is motivating.

If you hate your belly enough, maybe you’ll finally eat “better,” or if you’re embarrassed by your thighs, maybe you’ll work out harder. If you’re disappointed by the number on the scale, maybe that will finally be the push you need to lose weight.

But treating yourself like an enemy doesn’t actually teach you how to take better care of yourself.

In fact, body hatred can make you more vulnerable to the very diet behaviors you may be trying to move away from.

When you’re having a bad body image day, the goal isn’t to force yourself to look in the mirror and say, “I’m beautiful!” if you don’t believe it.

Instead, try something more realistic: body respect.

What Does Disrespecting Your Body Look Like?

Sometimes it helps to get really concrete about what body respect does and doesn’t look like.

Disrespecting your body can look like:

• Looking in the mirror and picking your body apart.
• Only wearing black because you believe it makes you look thinner.
• Wearing clothes that are uncomfortable because you think you shouldn’t be seen in something more fitted.
• Drinking black coffee because you’ve decided you don’t “deserve” the calories in creamer.
• Getting on the scale and allowing the number to determine how you feel or what you eat that day.
• Exercising as punishment for eating pizza, ice cream, or another food you enjoyed.
• Avoiding clothes you love because you think they make you look bigger.
• Avoiding carbohydrates because you believe they automatically cause weight gain.
• Ordering the lower-calorie option at a restaurant because you don’t think you’ve earned the food you actually want.
• Avoiding doctor’s appointments because you’re afraid of being judged for your weight.
• Refusing medication because you feel ashamed that you need it.
• Using coffee, water, diet soda, or other no-calorie drinks to suppress your hunger instead of eating.

And this list could go on.

The common thread is that your body becomes something you have to control, punish, hide, or fix before you’re allowed to fully participate in your life.

Stop Putting Your Life on Hold Until You Lose Weight

One of the most painful ways body dissatisfaction can affect your life is when you start believing that you have to lose weight before you can do the things you want to do.

It sounds a lot like: 

• “I’ll go on vacation after I lose weight.”
• “I’ll sign up for online dating after I lose weight.”
• “I’ll join the social group, take the exercise class, get family photos taken, or go on the girls’ trip after you lose weight.”

I’ve even worked with clients who didn’t want their partner to propose until they lost weight because they wanted to be thinner in their engagement photos.

But your life is happening right now. You don’t have to earn the right to be photographed, loved, seen, celebrated, or included by changing your body first.

Body respect means allowing yourself to participate in your own life in the body you have today.

What About Carbs and Weight Gain?

A bad body image day can also make old food rules sound incredibly convincing.

One common example is deciding that you need to eliminate carbohydrates because you believe carbs are making you gain weight.

But the initial weight loss that often happens when someone dramatically reduces carbohydrates isn’t proof that carbohydrates are inherently “bad.”

Your body stores carbohydrates as glycogen in your muscles and liver. Glycogen is stored along with water, so when carbohydrate intake drops and your body uses those glycogen stores, some of the associated water is lost too. (That’s one reason low-carb diets can produce a rapid change on the scale.) And when carbohydrates are added back in, glycogen stores are replenished and water comes along with them.

That change on the scale can then reinforce the story that “carbs made me gain weight.”

Understanding what’s happening can help you step back from the fear and remember that your body is doing what bodies do. Instead of automatically cutting out a food group because you’re unhappy with your body, ask yourself, “What would actually be respectful to my body right now?”

Body Respect Doesn’t Mean You Have to Love Your Body

Body positivity can sometimes feel like a giant leap when you’re struggling with body image.

If you’re looking in the mirror thinking, “I hate how my stomach looks,” being told to immediately think, “My stomach is beautiful!” may not feel believable.

That’s where body neutrality can be helpful.

Body neutrality means being able to acknowledge your body without attaching judgment to it. You might look in the mirror and simply say, “These are my arms,” “This is my belly,” “These are my thighs,” or simply, “This is my body.” 

Those are simply facts. There’s nothing to debate or criticize. And from there, you can begin to add kindness. 

• “These are my arms, and they carry my groceries and let me hug my family.”
• “This is my belly, where my essential organs live.”

You don’t have to convince yourself that every part of your body is beautiful. You’re learning a new way of speaking to yourself. And just like learning any new language, it takes practice.

What Does Respecting Your Body Actually Look Like?

Body respect isn’t just about changing the way you talk to yourself. It’s also about changing the way you treat your body.

It can look like:

• Catching negative thoughts. Notice when you’re criticizing your body and practice reframing the thought instead of automatically believing it. Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend, not an enemy.
• Taking care of your health. Schedule the doctor’s appointment you’ve been avoiding, get your labs checked, take medications as prescribed without shaming yourself for needing them. Remember, getting medical care isn’t a failure, medication isn’t “cheating,” and using the tools available to support your health isn’t taking the easy way out. 
• Feeding yourself adequately. Eat when you’re hungry and choose food that’s satisfying.  Allow yourself to eat carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber without becoming rigid or obsessive about getting everything “perfect.” And you don’t have to look up the calorie content of every food you eat.
• Moving your body for self-care. Take a ten-minute walk because it feels supportive, not because you need to burn off what you ate. Or do your physical therapy exercises for your knee or back because they help you care for your body.
• Wearing clothes that fit your current body. Wear clothes that are comfortable now. You don’t need to wait until your body changes to wear the things you like. If you want to wear the sleeveless dress or the two-piece swimsuit, wear it. And if you need a seatbelt extender on an airplane, asking for one is an act of taking care of yourself and keeping yourself safe. 
• Letting yourself take up space. You don’t have to shrink your life because you don’t currently feel comfortable in your body. Go to the social event, get in the family photo, and let yourself be seen. 
• Protecting your mental space. You can opt out of diet talk at work, skip the workplace weight-loss challenge, and choose not to participate in the end-of-year gym challenge. Oh, and you can unfollow social media accounts that consistently make you feel terrible about yourself and follow the ones that show body diversity and acceptance instead.
• Letting your body age. You don’t have to treat every sign of aging as a problem that needs to be fixed or erased. Allowing your boy to age in peace can also be an act of body respect. 

What to Do When Body Image Thoughts Get Really Loud

The next time you have one of those days when you don’t like your weight or your body image, pause before reacting. Notice the urge to diet, restrict, punish yourself with exercise, body check, or make a bunch of new rules.

Then ask yourself, “What would respecting my body look like today?”

Maybe it’s eating breakfast instead of skipping it, wearing the outfit you actually want to wear, taking your medication, or making the doctor’s appointment.

The goal isn’t to make the uncomfortable feeling disappear instantly. It’s to stop allowing that uncomfortable feeling to dictate how you treat yourself.

You Don’t Need More Body Hatred

When your body image feels terrible, diet culture will have plenty of solutions ready for you: A new diet, a detox, a workout program promising to “lose belly fat,” or a supplement making exaggerated promises.

These products and programs can become especially tempting when you’re already feeling insecure.

That’s why body respect matters.

You don’t need more rules when you’re struggling with your body, more punishment, or to bully yourself into taking better care of yourself. 

You need kindness, care, and respect. And that respect can show up both in how you speak to yourself and in the actions you take to care for your body.

You may not like your body every day. You may not love it. That’s okay.

You can still choose to treat it well.

And on the days when those negative thoughts are especially loud, remember that you don’t have to love your body to respect it. You are enough already.

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Search for Ep.262 (Transcript): The #1 Thing You NEED To Do On The Days You Don’t “Like or Love” Your Weight or Body Image

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