6 Best Tips For Loving Your Body More!
Many people want to change something about their body: their weight, look, skin color, complexation, body type, and a million other things. In fact, according to the National Center of BioTechnology (NCBI), research shows that 84% of American women experience body dissatisfaction in their lifetimes.
Loving your body, especially when you don’t, isn’t easy. It’s also not as simple as the body positivity movement makes it seem. Going from a negative mindset where you constantly say, “ I hate XYZ part of my body,” or “I hate my body,” takes time, patience, and self-awareness.
It’s natural to want to change something about yourself. Everyone does. However, when this desire becomes an unhealthy obsession, it becomes dangerous.
So, here are some tips for loving your body.
Tips For Loving Your Body
Commit To Self-Love
The first step to loving your body more is to commit to the change. Next, you have to acknowledge that you don’t have a good relationship with your body or yourself before you can do anything else.
Acknowledging this negative relationship will make it easier for you to start building positive and healthier habits for cultivating the self-love needed to have a good relationship with your body. When you make this commitment, make sure that you mean it. Make sure you’re willing to do whatever it takes to find self-love towards your body.
Treat Your Body With Care
Loving your body isn’t all about just accepting the outer image. It’s also about appropriately taking care of it and ensuring your body always feels good. Taking care of your body includes:
- Drinking water
- Eating healthy foods
- Moving your body
- Not judging it harshly
It can also include taking a few minutes from the day to treat your body to something nice, such as a hand massage, a new lotion, a spritz of perfume, wearing fuzzy socks, using a face mask, or even hitting the gym for 20 minutes.
The idea is to help your brain associate your body with positive and good feelings. So, by making a habit of taking care of it, your brain will eventually and naturally want to shower you with love. It just takes time and patience.
Remove Toxicity
If you’re following super skinny Instagram models, diet companies, or weight loss specialists, you need to delete them IMMEDIATELY. A recent study conducted by Instagram shows that specific features within the app can worsen body image issues among young teenage girls. But, this is not the first time you’re hearing this. I can promise that you’ve already known about the harmful effects of social media on body image, especially for women.
So, to love your body more, you must make sure that the social media accounts you follow make you feel empowered and beautiful. Delete and add new accounts because you want to surround yourself with positive body image content.
You can follow accounts that talk about healthy living and fitness. That’s not the problem. However, don’t follow any pages that promote products that guarantee a certain amount of weight loss in XYZ weeks, diet pill companies, or so-called weight loss specialists.
If you’re unsure who you should follow on Instagram, below are a few of my favorite accounts.
- @alyssabuon
- @thebonafidewoman
- @chelseyarmfield
- @successandselfcare
Explore your body
To love your body, you have to know it on a deeper level, which includes sexual.
For women exploring our bodies might mean learning more about our uteruses and wear the cervix is located, tracking the menstrual cycle, and moving our bodies away that makes us feel good. Another great way to learn more about your body is through a mindfulness practice called body scanning.
Body scanning is a mindfulness practice in which you use a deep breathing technique to pay attention to different body parts and their sensations. You typically start at the toes and gradually work your way up until you’ve reached your face.
Change The Mindset
Many people have a terrible habit of using harmful or passive-aggressive statements towards themselves. Even when used jokingly, these sayings impact how the brain views your body. Learning to love your body means training your brain to switch out those negative thoughts with something more positive.
Here are some standard mindset shifts for body positivity
- Instead of saying I’m so fat, no one likes a fat woman, say I’m going to work on improving my physicality because I don’t feel my best right now.
- Instead of saying I’m ugly, say I’m beautiful inside and out.
- Instead of saying Nobody will ever love me because I have XYZ body, say I will be loved by someone who appreciates everything about me, including my body.
Remember That All Bodies Were Made Naturally Beautiful And That It’s Okay To Want To Improve Yourself Without Bringing Yourself Down.
There is no such thing as the perfect body. Everyone has something they don’t like about themselves, which is okay. However, it’s more important to remember that you are beautiful and that working towards change is okay when you’re not being destructive.
Final Thoughts
Maybe your battle is with food and appearance. Perhaps it’s with weight loss. Unfortunately, being at war with your body isn’t healthy. Society has made women obsessed with the shape and weight of our bodies, not in good ways. The road to loving your body is long, but with small steps, you can build a more positive relationship with it.
Everyone has faults and victories, weaknesses and strengths, good characteristics and bad habits – embrace yourself for all you are: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
You’ll eventually love your body through adequate self-love and develop the traits needed to commit to healthy habits without harming your body image.
How’s your relationship with your body? Let me know in the comments.
I needed this post! I am trying to work on how I talk to and about myself, confidence and general self love. Thank you for these really tips!
Lauren x
You’re welcome, I hope they help you well.
These are really great tips. Starting to reframe your mind set using positive affirmations is a great place to start
You’re right, it is a good place to start. Thanks for reading.
These are great tips – it can be so hard to accept your body and the way you look, especially when we’re so bombarded with images of “perfect” bodies on Instagram and in the media.
Completely agree.
I love this post so much! So many people struggle with body image now but I truly believe all bodies are beautiful. I really need to do a big unfollowing spree on Instagram though – there’s so many accounts on there I know can really put me down with the comparisons. Thank you so much for sharing x
Oh yes, please make sure that you do that. I’ve recently started unfollowing accounts, and it makes me feel so much better.
I have a good relationship with my body when I’m actively doing things to sustain it. I applaud my efforts. But I feel the opposite when I’m sedentary and making unhealthy choices. The key for me, which you mentioned in your post, is to move your body. When I do that, I feel GREAT!
Crystal | http://www.amazingbaby.app
YES, YES YES! Moving the body is sooo important, especially when you’re going on a journey of self-love and inner happiness.
Love this body positivity post! And all these tips are great! Thanks for sharing
Thank you for reading and commenting!
I definitely have a love-hate relationship with my body. I am trying to work on speaking more positively about myself. These are great tips! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this with me. I’m also working on speaking more positively to myself.
This is so encouraging and supportive; which we need more of right now. I have things to work on that will improve my health so this was a lovely reminder to keep going and cherish my body now and in the future. Thanks!
You’re welcome Molly. I’m happy that you enjoyed my post and that it inspired you.
Lovely tips! I have been working in this more myself, eating more vegetables & smaller portions at meal time, starting to get back into yoga, etc.
Good for you! I’m rooting for you all the way!!!!
loved this post and the promotion of body confidence. the world needs to have this mindset more often. thanks for sharing.
Thank you for reading!
LOVE this post!!!! Such a positive and motivational piece with some great empowerment tips. Go you lovely lady xx
Awe thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed reading this.
Great thoughts! I started loving my body way more when I moved away from the toxic environment where comments on my body were normal. Now nobody says anything about the way I look apart from complimenting my outfits and genuine interest in health (I had an operation done so asking how my body is healing and what I am allowed do at the said moment are completely fine and normal). And suddenly I started loving my body so much. It changed a lot but I still love everything about it, embracing the changes and exploring the new. Caring about your body with water, food, and movement helps a lot as well. I know when I eat tasty and healthy food, when I drink plenty of water, when I walk/exercise I am loving myself at the same time.
Wow Lyosha, I’m at a loss for words. Thank you for sharing this, it must not have been too easy. I’m sorry that you were in an environment where people always commented on your body, but I am happy to read how you’re working on continuously loving your body and that’s the most important thing.
I struggle hard with treating my body with care, which is something I’ve recently started to focus on. Because I don’t drink nearly enough water or move around enough either. Your post has some amazing tips, and it really is time to start showing my body a lot more love than what I have been!
Recognizing where you can start making improvements is the first step towards treating yourself right. The fact you know that you’re not drinking enough water or working out is a good thing because now you can work on implementing steps to do so.
Great post. Self love in regards to my body is something I’ve always struggled with and it’s definitely an on-going learning process. Changing the way you speak to yourself is a great starting place!
I’m also learning to love my body more, especially through my words. It’s going to be a long process, but I know that I can get there with lots of support. Thanks for reading.
I absolutely love that you point out to follow people that only make you feel empowered on Social Media. We all spend so much time on social media so why not make it a positive space! I love what you are doing here and look forward to reading more posts!
I think it’s important to highlight people in the online community who are working towards creating a positive space for more bodies, especially because there aren’t enough people doing so.
Beautiful post Riyah and one that more people need to take on board. Including me. Even though I talk about body positivity all the time, it’s still a struggle to leave that mindset behind.