You Can Love Your Body and Want to Lose Weight at the Same Time

Celebrities Meghan Trainor and Lizzo, among others, have recently lost a substantial amount of weight. Both have long been beacons of body confidence and self love. Their drastic weight loss has been trolled and they’ve been criticized mercilessly for being hypocritical. Does the fact that they promote body positivity, the notion that you can love your body and be beautiful at any size, mean they can’t work toward and desire something different? Not at all. Body confidence and weight loss are not mutually exclusive. Loving and appreciating the body you’re in does not have to have anything to do with size. Even if it did, in the words of every Dialectical Behavior Therapist, two opposing things can certainly be true at the same time.

Negative Self Talk

Loving your body is a tall order for many of us. Loving yourself gets wrangled and often trampled in the mix. According to Alexander Bukh, PhD, bariatric psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), the primary components that make up how we see and feel about ourselves include our self-talk, body image, and social pressures together with the impact and influences of the world around us. In a Women’s Health poll of more than 1,000 Instagram followers, 82% of respondents said they think about their own body image every single day.

Society does a number on us from the time we’re quite young, imposing beauty standards and pressure that frequently get in the way of achieving a state of self love and happierness. There’s little we can do to quiet the sounds from society but a lot we can do to deal with our own negative self talk, like reframing negative thoughts by focusing on what your body can do rather than what it looks like. Ultimately, no one needs to like everything about themselves but it’s unlikely that each of us can’t find a few things we like and build from there. If we can treat ourselves with compassion and surround ourselves with positive people who see and appreciate us, we can learn to appreciate our whole selves as well, including our bodies.

Flip The Script

Some useful strategies for flipping the script and compassionately addressing body-related negative self talk include:

• Sideline social media (take a break from social media and stop comparing yourself to others)
• Get angry about it (notice that body negativity is a distraction for which you have no time)
• Ask yourself what your body can do (also known as body neutrality)
• Connect with your body (activities that use your body help you appreciate what it can do)
• Set boundaries (create body talk-free zones with friends)
• Try body reflexivity (remind yourself your body is for you; stop comparing)
• Remember that bad days are okay and to be expected (give yourself grace)
• Hear criticism as an unpleasant outsider (you don’t have to agree or even listen)

You may love your body or learn to do so and still want to make a change. No justification or explanation to anyone is ever required. Being body positive and being physically healthy, which may entail losing weight, both contribute to your overall health and wellbeing. Critics of those who lose weight might want to look in the mirror and question what’s really bothering them.

Gratitude

Today is American Thanksgiving. It feels like the perfect day to express gratitude for the container that holds the real you. Personally, I deeply appreciate my body that has helped me through some pretty dark times over the last several years. I have not always treated it well but it has never abandoned me. Rather, it’s provided me with armor I’ve needed. In the last year, with the help of coaching and weight loss medication, I have lost considerable weight that I had gained over time and found impossible to shed. For those who question the use of weight loss medication and maybe consider it a cheat, you’re entitled to your opinion. My opinion (that medication is one tool in a much larger toolkit that makes the impossible possible) is based on scientific data and supported by my own experience. I am the healthiest I’ve been in a long time. I work out regularly, I eat well, and I practice mindfulness. I do not love my body because I lost the weight and it’s now smaller. The truth is I was able to lose the weight and I will keep it off because I learned to love myself, including my perfectly imperfect body.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Musical Playlist While You Ponder This Post

All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor, Still Don’t Care by Meghan Trainor, Me Too by Meghan Trainor, Made You Look by Meghan Trainor, About Damn Time by Lizzo, Good As Hell by Lizzo, Juice by Lizzo, Big And Chunky by will.i.am, My Humps by Black Eyed Peas, Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, This Is Me by Keala Settle, Pretty Hurts by Beyoncé, Beautiful by Christina Aguilera, Scars To Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara

Thinking and Trying

Something to think about: Consider these two gems from Lizzo:

1. “The body-positive movement is the body-positive movement, and we high five. We’re parallel. But my movement is my movement. When all the dust has settled on the groundbreaking-ness, I’m going to still be doing this. I’m not going to suddenly change. I’m going to still be telling my life story through music. And if that’s body-positive to you, amen. That’s feminist to you, amen. If that’s pro-black to you, amen. Because ma’am, I’m all of those things.”
2. “Every time I rap about being a big girl in a small world, it’s doing a couple of things; it’s empowering my self-awareness, my body image, and it’s also making the statement that we are all bigger than this; we’re a part of something bigger than this, and we should live in each moment knowing that.”

Something to try: The National Eating Disorders Association suggests looking at yourself as a whole person. When you see yourself in a mirror or in your mind, choose not to focus on specific body parts. See yourself as you want others to see you — as a whole person.

Join Our Tribe

I always feel smarter and stronger when I listen to and connect with wise people. My friends and fellow coaches Maria and Lorin are among the wisest people I know. The three of us joined together to bring you the Unpacking Midlife With The Wise Women podcast. You can listen on Spotify or Apple podcasts. We share our thoughts, concerns, and joys relating to our journeys through midlife. Whether you’re seeking guidance, validation, or the comfort of knowing you’re not alone, this community welcomes you.

Coaching Can Help

If you are struggling with negative self image and negative self talk, you might consider working with a therapist or a coach. A therapist can help you get to the root of your issues and address patterns of behavior. A coach can support you in the creation of new habits that, in turn, support youyr overall health and wellbeing. Contact me here to talk about how coaching can help you develop healthy habits that keep you feeling your best. The first session is 15 minutes over Zoom and it’s free.