In case you can’t tell, today we are going to be talking about navigating the pressure to look a certain way in the summer.

Body image can be really hard this time of year, where the temperature is getting hotter, and we tend to wear less clothes and fewer layers. It’s harder to hide our bodies when it’s a million degrees outside. And if we do try to hide our bodies in pants, leggings or long sleeves, we’re hot and miserable. 

So how do you navigate the pressure to look a certain way when it comes to wearing things like shorts, tank tops and swim suits? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not about changing your body, it’s about changing your approach to how you are relating to your body.

We’re going to talk about some tools to help you with this, and you’re going to want to grab my free body image journal prompts. You can get those at nondietacademy.com/bodyimage.

These are going to help you to heal your body image not just in the summer, but year round. Body image might be harder this time of year, but it impacts how we carry ourselves and how we treat ourselves each and every day. So grab those prompts at nondietacademy.com/bodyimage for free and you can dive into those later when you have time to do some journaling. 

I want to tell you about an exciting workshop I have coming up: Empowered Intuitive Eating Experience live workshop. It’s a 3-hour hands-on event where I’m going to take you from feeling uncertain and unsteady with your intuitive eating process, to feeling clear and confident about HOW and WHY it works and why you chose to go this route.

My goal is for you to stop second-guessing yourself so you can move forward feeling empowered to take the next steps in your journey and to identify what those next steps are. We’re also going to work on how to respond to your own self-doubt and naysayers in your life. In fact, as a bonus I’m going to give you a guide full of scripts for what to say in those situations.

 You can check out details and grab tickets at nondietacademy.com/empowered. I have early bird pricing going on through June 30th. If you have ANY questions just send me an email or DM me on Instagram. Again it’s nondietacademy.com/empowered.

First things first, let’s kick society’s ideals to the curb. Your body is uniquely yours, that’s a wonderful thing! The biological diversity that allows humans to be different heights, different sizes, different shapes – it’s all a wonderful thing. As human beings we aren’t meant to all look the same. And truth be told, it would be kind of boring and confusing if we did.

4 Simple Ways to Feel More Comfortable in Your Own Skin This Summer
Practice

1. Practice If you want to feel more comfortable wearing shorts or short sleeves or a swimsuit, then you’ve got to practice being in these clothing items. Most people make the mistake of trying to feel better about their body first before they wear these types of clothes, and they end up staying stuck never feeling comfortable enough to wear the clothes or swimsuit. You’re never going to feel comfortable wearing it until you DO IT. 
2. Challenge your inner dialogue We touched on this a little already. Part of navigating body image stuff in the summer (and year round really) is challenging your inner dialogue. We don’t want all the negative thoughts to just run amok – it becomes like background noise that’s always there. If all day everyday you’re thinking about how much you hate your body, then of course you’re going to perpetually feel that way.
   With acceptance we want to work on tolerating and accepting your body as it is on any given day. That is the body you have in that moment. There might be things about it you don’t like. That’s ok. You can still choose to accept that it is the body you have, and choose to stop berating yourself.
3. Change up your social media Next time you’re scrolling on your phone, pay attention to how many of the things you are seeing make you feel worse about your body, or that make you think about trying to eat healthier or lose weight or work out more. Pay extra attention for messages about losing weight for summer or getting a beach body. Unfollow this content, report these ads so you don’t see them, get rid of this stuff on your feed. If it’s someone you know personally, you can hide their content without unfriending them. Then cultivate a feed that has lots of body diversity and challenges the societal beauty standards. You’ll be surprised how much this helps you to see this type of content each day. And on the flip side, research shows that generally, the more time we spend on social media the worse we feel about our bodies, so when you’re seeing mostly the diet culture stuff it’s making your body image worse. Let’s turn that on its head and use it to your advantage to help you learn to be more accepting of your body and to normalize for your brain that body diversity is normal and wonderful!
4. Do a values check What I mean by this is to ask yourself what’s most important to you in your life this summer. If you value things like relationships with family and friends, then hiding at home when they’re all at the pool or lake doesn’t actually align with your values.

Don’t forget to check out my free body image journal prompts. Those would be something great to utilize in conjunction with the things we talked about today.

The act of writing and reflecting is scientifically proven to be really beneficial for helping our brain integrate new ways of thinking.

You can get those prompts at nondietacademy.com/bodyimage.

Stay kind, stay curious, stay compassionate, and go out there and enjoy life fully this summer. You won’t regret it, I promise. 

Sending you lots of support – you’ve got this! We’ll talk again next week.

Resources Mentioned:

Grab My Free Body Image Journal Prompts

Check Out the Empowered Intuitive Eating Experience

Did you know you can listen to all this information in audio format?

I covered it all in Episode 81 Summer and Body Image: Navigating the Pressure to Look a Certain Way

Or, listen & subscribe on your favorite platform:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Deezer |  Google

Search for Episode 81 – Summer and Body Image: Navigating the Pressure to Look a Certain Way

Let’s get connected! 

• Instagram: @katyharvey.rd
• Facebook: KatyHarveyRD

Looking for more support on your journey to food freedom and body acceptance?

• Join my Facebook group & community “Intuitive Eating Made Easy”
• Take my FREE quiz “What’s Your Unique Path to Food Freedom?”
• Save $120 on HelloFresh, my fav food delivery service!
• Check out my course, Non-Diet Academy