The Easy First Step to Loving Your Body (Without Dieting)

We live in a society that is constantly telling you NOT to love your body, and always offering “solutions” on how to “fix” it.

That’s diet culture.

I think of body love and confidence as a muscle you build, a trust you form with yourself, and a habit you practice.

Diet culture has made you believe that if you just toned your arms, or if you just lost the belly fat, or if you just lost the 15lbs … then and only then you’ll finally feel confident and be able to live your life freely.

BUT the secret the diet industry don’t want you to know (because then you won’t spend $money$ on the diet programs they’re selling), is that joining the diet, working on “fixing” your arms, your belly, and losing the weight Is the very thing keeping you from your true confidence, and from living your life freely and from actually staying at your ideal weight.

What does living your life freely really look like?

Free to spend Friday night with friends, drinking wine and making memories, instead of stressing about going over your calorie limit for the day.

Free to have the brain space and energy to pursue your passions, and turn that side hustle into your full-time dream job, instead of spending all of your free time at the gym.

Free to swipe right, go on that date, and meet your soul mate, instead of always worrying your body isn’t “good enough” for another person to love.

So how do you cultivate that confidence, how do you be “body positive” in a world that’s telling you you’re not good enough?

The first step is making it easy to love your body.

I know, I know! How can it be easy if society, social media, magazines, etc. is making it so damn hard?

Think about it like forming a habit. The habit of loving your body instead of hating it.

I’ve talked about starting from a neutral place, but think about the actionable, next step in creating this habit.

If you were forming a habit of going to the gym, what would you do?

You’d make it as easy as possible to form the habit. First you’d get yourself in the right environment. You’d sign up for a gym membership so you have a place to go. You’d buy sneakers, and an outfit to wear and feel comfortable in while working out. You’d decide which days you’re going to the gym, and what you want to do there. Maybe, you’d find a gym buddy to meet up with and hold you accountable. All of these factors will make it easy for you to create that habit.

Same here for loving your body. This is a habit, too. Up until now, you’ve just made it easy to have a habit of NOT loving your body

So how do we make this new, body love habit easy to do?

Start with who and what you surround yourself with. The people in your life shape who you are. Are your friends always talking about their diets, their insecurities, and the things they want to change about themselves? That’s going to make it way harder for you to start loving your body.

It’s like the scene in Mean Girls when all of the ‘Plastics’ are nitpicking their “flaws”. “My nailbeds suck”, “my pores are huge”, “I want to lose 5lbs”, and then Cady follows-suit, and tries to find something to hate about her body.

We love to feed off of each other’s negativity, but this just cultivates more negative energy, and hating your body more. In order to make loving your body a habit, you have to stop engaging with the negative habits contributing to those thoughts.

Take note of who you surround yourself with and who you follow on social media. How do you feel after spending time with those people, or after scrolling through your feed. If an account or a person is making it hard for you to love yourself, consider unfollowing, or spending less time with that person.

You have control over what you consume and who you give your energy to – choose wisely.

Choose what lights you up, choose what gives you confidence, choose what makes it easy for you to start the journey towards loving your body.

The same goes for your physical environment, get rid of the things that don’t serve you so that you have the ideal environment to form a ‘body love’ habit.

Throw away the scale, remove the calorie/point tracking app, turn the Apple Watch ‘health’ option off if it’s causing negative thoughts about your body to come up. These technologies don’t measure your worth, they don’t encourage you to love your body, they encourage you to want to change it even more. They're merely numbers, they can’t tell you how you feel, and typically make you feel worse about yourself and make it really hard to form a habit of loving your body.

Same goes for your clothes. How can you feel confident in your body in clothes that don’t fit? If you’re constantly putting on clothes that make you feel uncomfortable, that is a constant reminder to you that you’re uncomfortable – and therefore will make it even more difficult to love the body you’re in.

Stop fantasizing about the pair of jeans you wore 10 years ago, hoping one day they’ll fit again. This sends a message to your brain that your body is not worthy of love until you fit in those jeans again. Let them go and get clothes that fit you well, and make you feel comfortable and confident.

To make loving your body a habit you have to choose the path of least resistance. When you surround yourself with people, information, and an environment that make it easy to love your body, little by little your love and acceptance of your body will grow, and become a habit.

In the difficult moments, I remind my clients this:

Your body was not made to fit In with everyone else’s. Your body is a vessel for you to live your life freely. A body to experience the world, to travel to new places, to eat food that brings you joy, to create memories with people you love, and to do work that you’re passionate about.

I know you can make loving your body a habit, and get your brain space spent counting calories back so you can focus on things that matter to you, just like my clients.

Are you ready to take the next step towards food and body freedom and live your life free of diet culture and all the negativity that comes with it?

Join me for a free 30-minute assessment call where we can get clear on how to form the habit of loving your body can be easy for you – so that you never have to start another diet, or waste another minute worrying about losing those 15lbs, so you can finally feel confident in a body that you love and get your brain space, energy, and life back! Because, life is too short to waste your time dieting.

Space is limited, book your free call here!

Be Well,

Marissa