With social media, filters, and picture-perfect bodies, many people have intense feelings of body dissatisfaction. One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight. As a result, some people engage in activities to try to reach an “ideal” body that popular culture dictates. Unfortunately, their efforts can result in poor health, anxiety, and depression. Fortunately, you can practice body neutrality.
What is Body Neutrality?
In general, comparing yourself to others can be helpful. In fact, you can learn about what you want, where you want to be, and how you measure up. Unfortunately, when comparing focuses on body image, it can affect your mental health by enabling negative self-talk, obsessing about weight, calorie counting, and focusing on unrealistic goals.
What if you could concentrate on what your body can do rather than how it looks? That is the core of what body neutrality is. Instead of looking in a mirror and judging your imperfections, you appreciate that your body lets you do all the activities you enjoy.
Body Neutrality vs. Body Positivity
Body positivity celebrates all body types regardless of size, shape, skin textures, stretch marks, body hair, and other typical body traits historically considered distasteful. It aims to challenge unrealistic ideals of physical attractiveness, build positive body image, and improve self-confidence.
Body positivity is a response against what’s culturally normal to help people embrace their bodies despite socially perceived flaws. Unfortunately, body positivity still highlights physical appearance despite its focus on accepting all body types.
On the other hand, body neutrality is less about accepting the look of one’s body and focusing on what the body can do. After all, your body is your most important tool to navigate everyday life.
How to Practice Body Neutrality
Practicing body neutrality is like any other lifestyle change. At first, it takes time and energy to make progress. However, it becomes automatic and natural once you establish your routine and habits. There will be tough days when you may feel insecure. Fortunately, it is expected, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Not sure where to start? No problem. Here are some tips you can do to begin your body neutrality journey.
Stop Talking About and Following a Certain Diet
Diets involve restricting the amount of food you eat or the types of foods you can eat. This inevitably leads to hunger. Unfortunately, all you think about when you’re hungry is eating. As a result, you suffer mentally, and you are more likely to cheat when your willpower breaks. Moreover, weight loss takes time, and you may become frustrated when the scale isn’t going down every time you weigh yourself. Furthermore, many who make it to a goal weight see it as an end to a journey and go back to their old diet, which can cause a person to regain weight.
Instead, try to make smarter choices when snacking and eat intuitively. Intuitive eating is learning to eat when you are hungry, paying attention to fullness, and choosing foods that make you feel good. Moderation is key. Therefore, you can still enjoy the foods you like without worrying that you’ll gain weight overnight. It’s about eating foods that satisfy your health needs and taste buds.
Find Activities You Enjoy
You don’t have to pound the pavement or lift weights if it’s not something you like to do. However, you should engage in exercises that you enjoy, which get your heart pumping. Even a daily walk or yoga a few times a week can do wonders.
Exercise changes our bodies by improving our physical and mental health. If you do activities you enjoy rather than doing them to lose weight or change your appearance, you are more likely to stick with a good exercise habit and look forward to exercising.
Take Stock of Your Good Qualities
You are talented and unique. You can do things no one else can. Your experiences, work, and hobbies shape your abilities. Focus on qualities about yourself that are not related to your appearance.
Winning the genetic lottery is not an achievement. Besides, what’s “ideal” changes over time based on cultural influence and is usually unattainable for most people. However, practicing body neutrality focuses on what is possible and what you can improve.
Improving Your Chances of Success
Tracking yourself can improve your chances of success by providing valuable feedback. You can use an app or a notepad to track your progress. All it takes is a few minutes a day to record the activities you did and how you felt throughout the day. This is helpful when you review your goals and progress.
A journal lets you follow and reflect on your journey without remembering all the details. It can also show you what is working and what may need adjustments. Journaling can be an important tool. Not only does it help you stay on track, but it can also help you track your well-being.
The Benefits of Body Neutrality
Body neutrality is a holistic approach to taking care of your body with sleep, intuitive eating, and activity rather than mindlessly exercising to burn off the food you eat. It reframes exercise as something enjoyable and not a punishment. Instead, it helps you connect yourself to what you do to help decrease stress and feel pride about yourself and your accomplishments rather than how it makes you look.
Body neutrality can improve your perception of yourself and increase your self-confidence. Also, it can help you keep your inner critic at bay and be less judgemental about yourself. It will help you look beyond your physical appearance and show that your self-worth isn’t your body shape or size.
It’s a Journey, Not a Destination
Your journey to body neutrality will not happen overnight. However, if you do a little bit every day and be patient with yourself, you will notice positive effects on your mood and overall well-being. Instead of being stuck on standards you can’t achieve, you’ll be able to focus on attainable and realistic goals that your amazing body can help you accomplish.
The Takeaway
There is no shortage of lifehacks, tips, and fads about improving your looks from social media and the health and wellness industry. Instead, practicing body neutrality allows you to focus on your body’s unique abilities and ignore the white noise of what is considered culturally normal.
Your body is only one piece of who you are and shouldn’t be the measuring stick for you as a whole. Instead, use your body as a tool to help you cultivate your other abilities and values. When you can appreciate what your body can do, who knows what you can accomplish.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
