Diets teach us to hate our (natural) bodies
The problem with improving how you feel about your body by losing weight is that it teaches you that there is only one good way to have a body.
This way is:
The smaller body is a good body. The larger body is the bad body.
And since intentional weight loss efforts (aka diets) have such a dismal success rate (less than 5-10% for most people will keep weight off long term), there is a very good chance that you’ll eventually end up in your larger body again.
Sadly, our society reaffirms thin=good, fat=bad, so you’ll get plenty of compliments as you lose weight and none as you gain.
(even if you are healing from an eating disorder or disordered eating as you gain weight. Almost no one will congratulate you on this)
Dieting teaches us that if *normal* eating doesn’t make us thinner, we are doing something wrong.
Because dieting teaches us that fat bodies are wrong.
So if you feel bad about your body, look to a culture that expects conformity with narrow and unrealistic body standards. Look to diets.
There is a way out of this, which is body image healing.
This is not easy or fast work. It takes time and practice. It takes challenging and changing unhelpful beliefs. But it IS achievable, and so worth it.
To help you get on your way to a better body image, I created a FREE guide with some quick strategies you can use to start increasing your body image resilience today.
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