A Healthy Mindset Can Lead to a Healthy Body

We are on the cusp of summer, and no doubt pressures to be beach-bod ready are sinking in. Most likely, you’ve ditched your sweaters (unless you live in New England, like me) and are showing more skin. Commercials, magazine ads, gyms, Pinterest pics all influence you to diet, sport a 6-pack, flaunt a tan—to achieve some thin ideal that society has said is attractive. But these messages can have detrimental effects on our body image, self-worth, and happiness.

It feels miserable to wake up and hate your body—to obsess over a specific feature or the way your clothes fit.  It’s easy to fall into restrictive or impulsive eating patterns in attempts to physically change yourself. But why do we need to fit some mold of what our bodies “should” look like? I think it’s really important to challenge these pressures and messages, to embrace yourself mentally and physically. Your goal should be HEALTH over fad diets and trendy plastic surgery. Your focus should be about loving and accepting yourself as you are, while motivating yourself to get healthy in a balanced and sustainable way through exercise and healthy eating behaviors.  Maybe you are very healthy, but you still hate your big butt or thick thighs, or moobs (man boobs). At what point do you say, “I am going to love myself”? Keep in mind despite how hard you try, genetics play a role.

Women—Check out the National Organization for Women Foundation (“NOW Foundation”) for more body loving inspiration

Men (I haven’t forgotten about you)—An article in Today Health highlights that “men worry about their appearance more than they worry about their health, their family, their relationships or professional success.” A TODAY/AOL Body Image survey found:

•   63% of guys said they “always feel like (they) could lose weight

•   53% don’t like having their picture taken

•   41% said they worry that people judge their appearance

•   44% feel uncomfortable wearing swim trunks (not to mention Speedos!)

The benefits of exercise aren’t just physical. Research has shown that people who exercise regularly feel happier, have increased self-esteem, increased energy, sleep better, and are more likely to have satisfactory sex lives with their partners.  Rather than thinking, “I need to lose 5 pounds to look good,” try thinking, “I’m going to exercise today because it makes me feel my best.”

If you have significant weight to lose, remember, major changes do not happen over night. Don’t become discouraged when you don’t drop 10 pounds in your first week—this is not realistic. Changing your body takes consistency—long-term motivation. Everyone wants immediate results and instant gratification. Do not set yourself up for failure! You need realistic expectations at the outset of every goal, otherwise you find yourself disappointed and don’t follow through. See your primary care physician or a nutritionist to find a healthy weight loss plan that works specifically for your body. 

Struggling to maintain a healthy body weight after you have lost? Be a weight loss mentor! Check out this Women’sHealth article for a helpful suggestion on how to keep those stubborn pounds off.

Be a weight loss mentor!

The Cambridge Eating Disorder Center (CEDC) located in Cambridge, Massachusetts says “Diets Do Not Work.” Here's their top-10 list why you should ditch your diet:

   

10. Diets don't work. Even if you do lose weight, you're more than likely to gain it all back and maybe even more than you lost. Why? Because maintaining a healthy weight is part of a lifestyle change. So if diets can't work in the long term, they can never work.

9. Diets are expensive. Books, foods, and products: all these things add up quickly. Just think - if you didn't waste money on these things you'd be able to go shopping for new clothes or go on a vacation and start feeling good about yourself immediately.

  

8. Diets are boring. On a diet, people tend to think about food and nearly nothing else. There is so much more going on in your life, focus on more interesting activities than diets.

  

7. Diets allow you to hide. Dieting can become all-consuming and excuse you from confronting other life issues. Do yourself a favor and spend your energy working on those first. 

  

6. Diets don't necessarily improve health. Like weight loss, health improvement is temporary. In fact, dieting can actually cause health problems. Yo-yo dieting results in fat and muscle loss and can lead to metabolic and cardiovascular disorders. If you're not already at risk, weight maintenance could be better in the long run.

  

5. Diets don't make you beautiful. Very few people will ever look like models - remember that glamour is a look, NOT a size. Being thin doesn't equal attractiveness.

  

4. Diets trick the body. When you feed your body less food than it needs, in the short term, yes you may lose weight. In the long term your mind thinks diet but your body thinks famine. So, your body holds on to energy at all costs making it harder and harder to lose weight.

  

3. Diets can turn into eating disorders. Sometimes dieting can go too far and become an obsession. This can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing and compulsive exercising.

  

2. Diets can make you afraid of food. Food provides nourishment, comfort and pleasure. Dieting can change your view of food and make it seem like the enemy - you may start to deprive yourself of all the positive things from food.

  

1. Diets can rob you of energy. In order to lead a full and actively life, you need to nourish your body with enough food and energy to meet your needs. If you're undernourished you lack the concentration to perform at your best.    

Take home message?  Get a healthy mindset so that you can get a healthy body! Practice self-compassion.