How to Love Your Body – While You’re On A Diet

One conundrum that most dieters face is how to love their body while they’re on a diet. After all, if you’re working to lose weight, you know that you need to be thinner for the sake of your health. But a poor body image tends to involve low self-confidence … often undermining your attempts to diet, by causing emotional eating.

So how can you love your body whilst knowing that it’s not quite the size and shape you want it to be?

Appreciate What Your Body Can Do

One important step is to change your focus from how your body looks to what it can do. Rather than thinking about those extra pounds you’re carrying, think of all the times when your body has healed after an injury. If you’re female, consider how your body is perfectly formed to carry and deliver a child.

One powerful way to start appreciating what your body can do is to begin exercising. If you’ve never exercised before, or if you’ve been unfit for a long time, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how quickly you see improvements. Even if, at the moment, you can’t walk for more than five minutes without getting out of breath, you can improve little by little until you’re capable of jogging for half an hour.

Your body is amazingly resilient. It heals when injured, it carries around those extra pounds all day, and it quickly develops muscles and greater lung and circulation capacity when you start exercising.

Focus On Good Health

When you’re dieting, it’s easy to get fixated by that number on the scales. Instead of focusing on being thin, concentrate on being healthy. Make sure you’re eating enough to give your body the nutrients and energy that it needs: surviving on diet shakes isn’t good for your body or for your long-term health.

Get in touch with your body, and start to learn what makes you feel healthy and alive. Do you feel more alert when you drink more water? Do certain foods make you feel bloated or sluggish? Do you have more energy when you exercise?

Going on a diet is a good time to think about making other health changes. If you smoke, take drugs or drink too much alcohol, these are all health-damaging habits that you might want to start changing. You don’t have to become perfect overnight: just take small, steady steps towards the healthy lifestyle that you want.

Write a List of Your Best Features

It’s so easy for us to focus on the things we don’t like about our body, whether it’s our thighs, our stomach, our upper arms, the stretch marks…

Instead of thinking about the bits of your body that you dislike, concentrate on the features which you love. Take a piece of paper and write down all the things you like about your body. It might be your shiny hair, your glittering eyes, your shapely fingernails, your cute nose, the shape of your ears…

If you’re really struggling to find parts of your body to appreciate, ask your partner (or a close platonic friend, or a relative) to write a list for you. It’s easy to put ourselves down and to underplay our best features – you might be surprised how the other people in your life see you!

Don’t Wait Till You’re Slim to Buy New Clothes

Finally, don’t fall into that classic dieter’s trap of “I’ll buy new clothes when I reach my target weight.” You deserve to wear attractive, well-fitted clothes right now. You might not want to replace your entire wardrobe every time you drop a dress size … but why not treat yourself to a gorgeous new outfit that will show off your changing figure?

The same goes for beauty treatments. Don’t leave it until you’re slim to book that spa day! Feeling and looking your best can really encourage you to stick to your diet when temptation strikes … so let yourself enjoy life right now. You can be attractive and beautiful whatever your weight, so don’t wait for permission from that number on the scales!

Written by Ali Hale

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2. What Is BMI (Body Mass Index) Used For?
3. Measuring Body Fat