Our intrinsic thoughts about ourselves which largely determine our outward behaviours.
This relationship with our body often falls in one of two categories, negative or positive body image - body image being the beliefs which we hold regarding our physical body.
Through the lens of a negative body image the body is viewed as an object and separate from mind. This often will be promoted in negative internal dialogue regarding the body or constant bodily comparison to others. This negative internal talk is reflected in behaviours around both diet and exercise - like the restriction of food to control body weight, over-exercising and ignoring the body's needs.
It is important as an individual taking on dieting or a new exercise regime to understand where the motivation is coming from, there is nothing wrong with wanting to change your body but the intention behind doing so is incredibly important.
To want to change your body is not to have a negative body image. You can appreciate your body and all its functionality and still want to change it. Importantly having a positive body image is something that you have to work at, it is an active practice through self kindness, acceptance, appreciation of your bodies functionality, self care and honouring your needs. You can still have self acceptance, appreciation and see your bodies capabilities while wanting to change it through diet and exercise.
In fact, those who have a positive body image are far more likely to uphold health promoting behaviours like eating in a nutritious way, exercising and resting far greater than someone who has a negative body image. This is because these behaviours are driven from an internal knowing and honouring of the body's needs - rather than ignoring and shoving to the side like the person who over-exercises does. This makes the behaviour of exercise far easier to maintain for extended periods of time enabling not only greater long term success in body composition but also improved physical and mental health.
“...individuals with higher positive body image reported fewer depressive symptoms, higher self-esteem, fewer unhealthy dieting behaviours, a lower drive for muscularity and greater intentions to protect their skin from UV exposure and damage. Interestingly, these findings occurred independent of BMI. That is, regardless of individuals’ actual body size, those who have higher positive body image experience better mental and physical health outcomes.”
Gillen MM. Associations between positive body image and indicators of men's and women's mental and physical health. Body Image.2015 Mar;13:67-74. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.01.002. Epub 2015 Feb 12. PMID: 25682474.
The First Step to Change
The Body Image ABC’s are a method of mindfulness developed by Health Coach and Educator Shannon Beer. It is designed to create awareness of your internal dialogue and is the established first step in improving one's view of themself. The method works by simply bringing mindfulness to your thoughts about your body. Then identifying why that thought was triggered and how your thought changes your behaviours.
A - stands for Activators. Being mindful of the events that trigger your feelings about your looks. What brought on this feeling? What happened?
B - stands for Beliefs. Mindfully observations the thoughts that arise as a result of the trigger. What were you saying to yourself about the situation?
C - stands for the Consequences of thoughts and beliefs. How did you feel? How did you react?
Just because you thought it - doesn’t make it real.
Once we begin to mindfully observe the thoughts about self coming in we can choose to either continue to act out the usual behaviours or we can accept the thought was had and move on.
The practice of understanding your trigger, the belief that arises but then stopping the through and rationalising it is a process called Positive Rational Acceptance. This can look like:
Capturing the throughs and stopping them before an overwhelm of emotion or a decision to restrict food, over-exercise or avoid social settings due to not liking the way you look will take a while to feel natural. You’ve potentially been bullying yourself for a long time. But it’s okay - the more you practice the easier it gets and the more natural it feels.
Gradually the nasty thoughts, they quieten. I know this because this is the same process I worked through almost accidentally over five years, with the help of moving my body to feel strong and nourish it through food to perform well.
Put it into Practice
This process I found on my own and worked through it over years before I found Shannon Beer’s teachings. For me all the work was done in my head very gradually but there are other options to getting this journey started for you. Starting a Body Image Journal might be one of the best ways to do this. Journaling has that special power to get you out of your head and to see just how confronting (and sometimes irrational) the thoughts you tell yourself about yourself can be.
Below is a printable PDF you can use to record your thoughts and begin to bring mindfulness to your intrinsic dialogue and allow you to take that first step to bettering your own body image and understanding your intentions with future diet and exercise.
If you do work through this Journal and begin to see a change in your beliefs about yourself, you see the intentions behind feeling rushed to lose weight or if your internal dialogue becomes a little kinder, please reach out and let me know. I would love to hear from you - wishing you all the best. R
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