How to Be at Peace With Your Changing Body
Finding peace with your body is a foundational aspect of eating intuitively. But for some people, eating intuitively may mean accepting a change in their bodies. And it's rare that anyone loves this idea, that their bodies may change, due to the fear that society puts on us that weight gain is always a bad thing. But let me explain how you can still be at peace with your body, even if you gain some weight, can't fit a size 00 any more, and feel like your past identity as being the "skinny fit girl" is shrinking away from you. Stay with me here, I've been in your shoes and yes, even you can find peace with your body!
Staring into the mirror at every chance I got, noticing every little bit of added tightness in my clothing and criticizing what I saw with increasing negative thoughts about my changing body. I thought to myself, how on earth am I supposed to keep this up? I'm working on my relationship with food, but I feel like such an alien in my changing body!
Giving up my, at the time, ideal body was one of the hardest things I did during this time of working to improve my overall health. I felt like I was giving up my identity. I was the athletic, toned, disciplined, and fit girl who everyone asked, "how do you do it?"
But I was empty inside, chasing perfection and still failing to feel healthy and whole.
So now that I was actually making changes, eating more of what I actually wanted and ignoring rules I had previously enforced about what was and wasn't healthy, I started to see the effect of not restricting show up in places on my body I wasn't too excited about.
"I'm working on my relationship with food, but I feel like such an alien in my changing body!"
Part of accepting the addition of love-handles and the loss of a 6 pack started with coming to terms with myself.
What truly makes up a person? Is it their appearance? Or is it what's on the inside. In my own personal research (i.e. watching people who I admired), I realized that these women who I looked up to didn't focus on their curves or cellulite. They weren't obsessing over calories or exercise. Those women who I most wanted to be like had an inner beauty that far outweighed their actual "on-the-scale" weight. Their beauty came from within. So if that's who I wanted to be, then it ultimately didn't matter that I gained weight. How I saw myself could come from how I wanted others to see me, as so much more than my outward appearance.
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Making room for more.
Oh how this mindset changed me! Instead of looking in the mirror 425756 times a day, I could focus my energy on being a delight to those around me, showering them with kindness, going the extra mile serving others. I could talk to other women and hear their story without criticizing my every position change and facial expression. I could just be ME. Who I was made to be.I was no longer worried about the extra weight I might put on with listening to my body's signals. I could trust that everything would even out and I would find my "set-weight", the weight that I'm ultimately supposed to be. I could focus all of my efforts not on calorie counting and measuring food in my head or finding time to exercise every single day.
Choose peace!
So if you find yourself still holding on to trying to micromanage your weight, if you can't imagine allowing yourself to make peace with food and your body and stop restricting and weighing and counting every crumb, let me give you some encouragement. This is your life, your one life. Stop allowing food fears and body fears get in the way of you chasing your dreams and being who you are meant to be! Making peace with your body is a choice. It may mean some body changes. Your body changes are a normal part of being human so embrace them. Choose to let your beauty shine from within and you'll be sure to turn heads!
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How do you feel about the possibility of your body changing?What fears hold you back from embracing who you truly are aside from simply your "healthy" status?