How to “get your body back”

Notice that the words “get your body back” are in quotes πŸ€” … that’s on purpose because most people say that when they’re talking about wanting to lose weight.

The truth is, your body hasn’t GONE anywhere 🀣 if you look down right now, she’s right there taking care of you and keeping you alive as we speak. The only reason you feel like you need to get your body back is because you’ve abandoned her. You keep rejecting her.

Timehop photos

We’ve all been there… We get a Timehop photo pop up on social media and we sit there wishing we looked like that again. The ironic thing is; when said photo was taken, 9 times out of 10, we thought we needed to lose weight then too! πŸ‘€

That is actually a powerful and great thing to release because it just proves that “It’s always all in your head!” If the way you saw your body then was “not good enough” then the way you see your body now or in the future – regardless of whether or not you lose weight – still won’t be “good enough.”

Warped association

What we tend to do when we see past photos of our thinner selves is then fantasise about becoming that version of our past selves again. We become obsessed and attempt to use it as motivation. We make vision boards with photos of our “happier and thinner” selves. We associate “thinner” with “happier” and “confident”. We think we just HAVE to get back to that version of ourselves because then life was great and filled with unicorns, rainbows and sparkles.

We basically lie to ourselves and decide that Thinner = Happier

But is that really the truth? Knowing that happiness is actually a learned skill practised through daily choice, how can the way your body looked – or more accurately – the way you CURRENTLY think about how your body looked because you always thought you were fat remember πŸ˜‰ – make you happy?

It didn’t and it can’t! You’re just reminiscing, making things up in your head that everything was a bed of roses and then feeling bad about yourself wishing you looked like that now.

What do you associate with “thinner”?

When you see a past photo of yourself and you’d give anything to look like that now, what is it you really want? Because it’s not thinness. It’s what you make thinness mean. What does the thinner version of you actually represent under the smaller body?

Maybe it means to you what it used to mean to me which was:

  • confidence
  • attention
  • love
  • admiration
  • beauty
  • happiness
  • control
  • fitness
  • etc

Nobody cares about being thin or fat in a vacuum, it’s ALWAYS what we make thinness or fatness mean in society and within ourselves.

Even if we can dig out an old photo of ourselves where we were actually happy in life and we also liked the way we looked, we still attach the way we looked at the time to how happy and confident we were. We are certain that it had everything to do with how our bodies looked when in fact, all of the things that you associate with being thinner can be achieved and experienced in the body you have now!

What’s behind the “weight” that’s making you feel so bad?

Get present with who you are now. The body you have now. The life you have now. All of it.

What is making you feel bad? Maybe it’s:

  • binge eating and restricting
  • breaking promises to yourself with your food and fitness
  • feeling constantly bloated from binge eating
  • feeling constantly deprived and hungry from dieting
  • feeling uncomfortable in your body
  • clothes not fitting
  • etc

Your “weight” is not the “problem” even though I know that it 1000000% feels like it is! If you worked on healing your relationship with food and your body, you’d instantly feel better in your body without even doing any body-image work.

If you worked on building healthy habits within your lifestyle with your fitness and eating your vegetables, for example, you’d feel better.

If you leant how to listen to your body and trust it to tell you what and how much to eat, you’d instantly feel better.

Being mad at yourself for your weight isn’t helping anyone, especially yourself! πŸ˜Άβ€πŸŒ«οΈ

How can you stop wanting to go back in time and “get your body back”?

Every time you say those words “I need to get my body back” you’re rejecting the current version of you. And that brings suffering. You’re not supposed to be the same, your body is supposed to change as time goes on, you’re a human animal, not a machine or a manakin!

In my opinion, you have 3 choices:

1. continue fighting reality, wish things were different and suffer

2. accept where you are now and work towards loving yourself and creating happiness and confidence within

3. attempt to change your body and suffer still – because diets don’t work and if you don’t change your mindset and improve your self-love, you’ll never be happy anyway!

What do you choose?

Mourn the loss

More often than not, body image work and healing our relationship with food requires you to mourn the loss of your past or your ideal body – and that sh*t can be painful!

It is honestly like grieving a person. And the 5 stages of grieving can absolutely occur if you’re not willing or able to go straight to acceptance:

  1. denial
  2. anger
  3. bargaining (what if dieting worked if only I could be as strict as I used to be…)
  4. depression
  5. acceptance

I’ve added a 6th stage of grief which is:

6. finding meaning through it all

Be “thinner” now

One of THE best ways to accept who you are and let go of the idea and the attachment of your past thinner body is to first be grateful for the body you have now.

What does your body do for you now?

Where would you be without your body?

If you have a fully functioning healthy body (not everybody does) how would you feel if you didn’t have that?

The second is to act as if…

Pretend that you are “thin enough” and act that way NOW.

So what would the “thin enough” version of you do differently do what you’re doing now?

How can you be that version of yourself now?

The more you ask yourself these questions and then act upon them, the quicker you will be experiencing all of the underlying positive things that you make thinness mean. Because it’s not about thinness, it’s about what you make thinness mean…

If you would like help with this, reach out to me beautiful. I offer a few different ways you can work with me and I block out 2 hours for you to have a free no-obligation consultation call to see if coaching or group coaching is right for you.

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