Always a fun, unapologetic and thoughtful creator of meaningful content on social media as @YourDietitianBFF (Instagram and TikTok), she’s been a contributor to Outside magazine, Weight-Inclusive Nutrition and Dietetics (WIND), Shape Magazine, Diversify Dietetics, and Healthline.com. Check out her work and learn more here.
Parts of My Body I Like: Small Changes Can Make A Huge Difference:
The purpose of the Mindful Shifts Pathway is to unlearn the “perfect” body that diet culture perpetuates. This sneaky, yet in-your-face image, may be influencing how you feel about your body, and may be the reason you choose to restrict certain foods.
This “perfect” body sells a dream. It lures us into believing that if only we had a “perfect” body, we would be on a tropical beach somewhere, you’ll be “perfect”, your significant other will be equally “perfect”, celebrating our new promotion and “perfect” lives. Our family members would finally stop making snide remarks about how we look and eat. Our friends would like us more, not just that, we’d have more friends.
And to get this “perfect” body? “Just do this restrictive diet”, they say. But, the problem is restrictive diets fail at least 83% of the time. That failure causes real pain, real suffering, and the feeling that it’s not the restrictive diet’s fault – it’s your fault.
That’s the lie. And it’s a brutal lie.
But it’s not your fault. Notice we said, “restrictive diets fail”, not you fail.
How to Start Feeling Better About Your Body
One of the best ways to start changing how you see your body and free yourself from the false claims that a “perfect” body and life are just one diet away is to make small changes, changes embedded in your already existing daily habits.
These small changes studied and made popular in academic circles by BJ Fogg at Stanford University, are super powerful. These tiny habits, repeated daily, can have a profound effect.In this session on “Parts of My Body I Like”, we want to guide you through the first step to make a small change. We ask you to identify which parts of your body you like and are grateful for (like your hands). You don’t have to be super excited about every aspect of your body. And being “body positive” all the time may not be realistic. Gratefulness can be a more practical and doable place to start.
You can start by saying “thank you” to your hands after your daily shower or bath. Or, how you really like your nose. Saying this simple thing, which takes a mere one or two seconds, may absorb into your mind and day by day, change how you relate to your body.
Eventually, you may find other parts of your body you like, say thank you to them, and develop more love and gratitude for your body.
One day, you may realize that you can look at an image of that “perfect” body, not feel any sort of way, and go on enjoying your life, enjoying the rare gift of your body.