Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the body positivity movement. How women should embrace their bodies and love themselves unconditionally no matter what their size or shape may be. But what does it all mean?
Honestly, I don’t think there is a straight forward answer about what body positivity specifically means, but I believe the underlying idea is choosing to love your body as it is, and in the many different ways that it will change over the years. The body you have today will not be the same body you will have a year from now. Which is why I think it’s important to learn how to be body positive for your health, not just your size.
This post will not be another post about body positivity, what it is, and why everyone should be body positive. Instead, I want to talk about this topic from a different perspective. The perspective of how being body positive can have amazing benefits for your health. If this sounds silly and confusing don’t worry. I’m going to break this all down for you, but first I want to explain why I think this is an important topic to talk about.
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Why You Should Be Body Positive
These past couple of months, my favorite online fitness coach Cassey aka Blogilates, decided to embark on a 90-day journey. The point of this journey? To get her body to a place where she was happy and comfortable. However, this seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way for many different reasons. One thing led to another and before I knew it Cassey was in this weird phase of no longer being “body positive”, and instead of being an online fitness coach who wanted to achieve personal health goals, she became someone who was essentially setting a bad example for the health and wellness community.
Trust me guys there was a lot going on, but this was the gist of it!
The other day I watched a video that Cassey made about this whole journey and how it potentially bruised her brand because she was no longer “body positive”. I found the video to be very inspiring, very informative, and it put a lot of things into perspective for me about what it essentially does mean to be body positive.
After watching the video, I began to think about the many different ways that I care for my body, and whether or not I do so in a body positive way. This naturally led to me wanting to write this blog post, because I discovered some very important things about the relationship we have with our bodies and how it relates to our health, that I wanted to share with you.
Why should you be body positive?
Essentially because the way you feel and view your body is ultimately going to set the tone for how you care for yourself overall. If you love and embrace every aspect of your body, you will be more likely to as active as possible, eat healthy, and do other activities to better your health on a consistent basis. If you don’t love and embrace your body, you’re more likely to not put much thought or effort into caring for yourself on a consistent basis.
There’s a mind and body connection happening when it comes to our health. When we feel good, we essentially “look” good, and vice versa. Our thoughts influence our actions and if we want to be as healthy as we possibly can, we have to learn how to start loving, accepting, and being kinder and gentler with our bodies through and through.
Body Positive and Your Health
There’s a mind and body connection that all leads back to our overall health. I truly do believe this.
All too often we take for granted the very little things that our bodies can do for us, such as helping us breathe, walk and run, stand for hours at a time, and get through a brutal workout. We do simple things like this every day and we never really take the time to acknowledge how well we thank our bodies for it.
A part of being body positive is giving your body the love and care that it not only needs, but that it deserves.
This looks different for everyone but it can literally be as simple as hugging yourself every day, looking in the mirror and saying “I love you”, and even choosing to genuinely love your body no matter what changes it goes through over the years. When we take the time to do simple things like this, we are teaching ourselves how to literally be kinder and gentler with our ever-evolving bodies.
When you have a positive relationship with your body it makes embarking on a health and wellness journey, a fitness journey, or a journey of any kind all the more enjoyable. It eliminates the pressure of having to look at certain way, be at a certain weight, or live up to unrealistic standards. Instead, it allows you to experiment and be as free flowing as you want to be at various points throughout your journey, until you get to the place that you most desire to be.
So how does this connect to our health?
In the mist of all my thinking I realized that when I’m not kind and loving to my body, my body does not perform in ways that I know it’s capable of doing. This includes simple things such as walking up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath when I reach the top. When my body performs poorly, my mental health begins to take a dip, and when that happens well everything else is pretty much downhill.
I imagine that this may be true for you as well, or maybe not. However, spending the past couple of weeks really thinking about how my negative self-talk, and lack of self-love impacts my health, helped me realize that the way we love our bodies greatly impacts our health. When we are kind our bodies thrive, when we are hurtful our bodies suffer.
So how do we fix this?
We fix this by doing things that are positive for our bodies. This is so much more than just working out, eating clean, being as active as we possibly can, and getting plenty of rest.
This includes the consistent practice of loving our bodies in everything that we do, and I’ve got a few ways that you can practice body positivity to help you get started.
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How to Practice Body Positivity
There are literally a ton of things that you can do to practice body positivity. It really just depends on your lifestyle, the type of activities you do throughout the day, and the way you ultimately care for your body.
However, the overall idea is to not only to do things that are good for your body, but to also talk to yourself in a loving and kind way. Being hard on yourself will reflect in your health, so the kinder you are, the healthier (and happier) you will be.
Still don’t have a clue? No worries. I’ve got 30 ways you can start being body positive right now!
30 Ways to Be Body Positive
- Avoid negative self-talk
- Set positive, health-focused goals
- Say positive, loving things to yourself everyday
- Focus on your strengths
- Know that your body type does not define your physical ability
- Eliminate things in your life that give you anxiety about reaching your health goals
- Be accepting of compliments from others
- Don’t be sacred to compliment others, confidence it key
- Appreciate everything that your body allows you to do
- Teach your body to the things that you want it to be able to do
- Literally adore every single inch of yourself, flaws and all
- Don’t limit yourself, ever
- Exercise to feel better, not to look better
- Set goals that are not about your appearance
- Positive vibes only, surround yourself with them
- Don’t compare yourself to anyone, ever
- Let go of the pain from your past and focus on the potential of your future
- Buy cloths that make you feel great
- Know the difference between your self-worth and your body size
- Find role models who make you feel comfortable in your own skin
- Hug your body everyday
- Get a massage every once in a while
- Stretch in the morning and before going to bed
- Know that everyone’s body is different, so don’t try to look like someone else
- Practice gratitude
- Honor and respect your body
- Know that you are enough
- Thank your body for everything that it does
- Celebrate the uniqueness of what makes you, you
- Don’t be afraid to take up space
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Ultimately love your body for everything that it is able to do. It may not be all the things that you wish it can do, but it’s enough to allow you to live the life that you want for yourself.
Also think about the way you view yourself, how to talk to yourself, and the way you allow others to treat you. This all connects to our mental health, which is connected to our overall health. If you want to thrive not only in life but with all your health goals as well, you have to love and accept your body the way it is.
It’s never going to look like someone else’s body. Your body is going to constantly change as you age, as you adopt new lifestyle habits and eliminate old ones. It’s never going to remain the same in every way, there will always be small alterations that will impact your confidence in some way, but don’t let it be a negative one. In order to be your happiest and healthiest, you have to be willing to love yourself through the whole process and at every stage.
That’s the secret ingredient for living a happy and healthy life.
So the next time you complete a workout, wake up in the morning, or even before you go to bed, take some time to think about how you can improve your health by showing your body some love for all that it has allowed you to do for the day. Your health will thank you for it.
Do you practice body positivity?
-Xo
Kimora