Intuitive Eating 101 Series - Principle #8: Respect Your Body

Learn how to start feeling better in your body at any size.

**Disclaimer: Please note that the information in this or any other blog posts on this site may not be suitable or apply to you, depending on where you’re at in your mental health and/or eating disorder/diet recovery journey. This information is for educational purposes only and not meant to be a substitute for medical or psychiatric advice. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before making any changes. See full disclaimer here.

Welcome to part eight of a ten part series, breaking down each principle of Intuitive Eating, a non-diet and weight-neutral approach to health. If you missed the introduction about what Intuitive Eating is and the deeper dive into the first principle, read this post first. You can also read the last part in the series here.

**Also, please note that this 10-part blog series was based on the 3rd Edition of Intuitive Eating, and there is now a 4th Edition out (June 2020), where some changes have been made. However the information in this series is still very much relevant to learning and applying the Intuitive Eating principles.   
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This post is going to be all about Principle #8: Respect Your Body.

If you are caught up in dieting and wanting to lose weight, most likely you are also caught up in negative body-talk and behaviours. After all, usually the reason someone goes on a diet is because they don’t like their body and they want to change it in someway. Moreover, women have been taught to “hate themselves skinny” - meaning that if they just feel bad enough about their body and or specific body parts, they will then be motivated to diet or exercise intensely to change it.

There’s also the message of “if you just work hard enough, you can change your body”, which then encourages rigid dieting and over-exercising behaviours. Women especially feel pressured to live up to unrealistic and narrow beauty standards, such as either the 5’10” waif runway model to the muscular (but not too muscular, more “toned”) and slim yoga or athletic body. So it is totally understandable that negative body image is rampant in our culture. 

Though there has been a rise in more body-positive messaging in the media, fashion and health industry, the message that “thin is better” is still pretty loud and clear. And the problem with believing this message is that it makes people feel less than, and that they have to “fix” something about their body or themselves. And this need to fix or change themselves leads to... you guessed it, dieting. And if you forget why the pursuit of dieting is futile and even harmful for your health, go back and read this post.

So to really get out of the diet mentality, there also needs to be a shift in how you view and treat your body. If you continue hating your body and believing it needs to be changed, you will most likely get sucked back into diet culture and dieting behaviours.

To stop hating your body is no easy feat. And the idea of “loving” your body can be a very hard pill to swallow, especially if you’ve been hating on it for so long. I get it. You can’t just wake up one day and suddenly not be affected by all the “thin is better” messages and fall in love with your body.

Tribole and Resch (2012) also understand this, which is why they start with the idea of “body respect” and not “body love”. Even if you can’t love your body right now can you at least start respecting it? What do they mean by respect? They say “Respecting your body means treating it with dignity and meeting it’s basic needs” (p.169). Even if you can’t get on board with accepting or loving your body, they encourage you to at least try to get on board with respecting your body. They have found that the more people practice body respect, the more easily they will also be able to practice the other principles of Intuitive Eating.

Tribole and Resch (2012) outline some ways to start practicing Respect Your Body:

• Get Comfortable: Are you wearing clothes or underwear that is too tight and uncomfortable? If yes, get some clothes and underwear that fits what they call your “here-and-now body”. Wearing clothes that pinches or constrains you only reminds you of the unrealistic thin ideal that you’re “failing” at  achieving and makes you feel worse about yourself. Or maybe you wear clothes that is baggy and over-sized to try to hide your body and believe you can’t wear well-fitted dress clothes that you usually like. Either way, you deserve to feel comfortable in your clothes and deserve to wear the clothes that you like and make you feel good. You don’t have to go on a huge shopping spree. You could just start with a few items and go from there.
• Change Your Body-Assessment Tools: If every time you step on the scale you experience anxiety or negative thoughts about your body or yourself, then please, please stop weighing yourself. I won’t get into all the reasons why the scale is a futile tool to measure any sort of “progress”, but just know that the number on the scale does not tell you anything about your health, your body composition, or your worth as a person. And please don’t swap the scale for a pair of old skinny jeans from high school, or from before you had a baby, or from when you were your “ideal” weight. You know, that pair of pants or that dress that you keep around because “one day” when you fit into it again, you’ll know you’ve achieved your weight-loss goal? Everyone’s body goes through natural changes throughout life, especially women. To try to make your 40 year-old body like your 20 year-old body is totally unrealistic and asking for failure and worse feelings about your body. If you’re not ready to throw out the scale or those pair of old skinny jeans, at least just hide them away so you won’t be tempted to use them.  
• Quit The Body-Check Game: Do you ever compare yourself to other people’s bodies? It could be with your co-workers, your best friend, people in your gym class, or someone you just met. If you are constantly thinking about your own body, most likely you are also thinking of other people’s bodies. It’s OK. This is very common. One way to help quit playing this body-checking game is to understand that most of the time, you don’t know the story behind how someone got that thinner body. Maybe they are on a rigid diet and are miserable. Maybe they suffer from an eating disorder. Maybe they are very stressed out and have trouble eating. Maybe they just have a naturally smaller body. There are lots of reasons why someone may have lost weight or has the “ideal” body. So try to keep that in mind if you notice yourself body-checking and comparing.
• Don’t Compromise For The “Big Event”: Want to lose weight for your wedding? Or a beach vacation? Diet culture thrives off of making you feel like you have to change your body for the “big event”. This usually only leads to extreme dieting and exercising behaviours. And maybe - that’s a BIG maybe - you will lose the weight you wanted for the event. But most likely you will then gain it all back and possibly even more. Do you really want to put yourself through that? If you have a big event coming up, try to plan for it with your here-and-now body and focus on behaviours that are health-promoting and nourishing for your body. And during the event, try to focus on the people and having a good time. Obsessing about how you look or your body will only take away from any positive experiences you could have.
• Stop Body-Bashing: Every time you think about all the body parts you hate, or that you wish were different, you are practicing body-bashing. How many times a day do you say negative things about your body to yourself? You could try keeping count, even for just a few hours and you may be surprised at just how often these thoughts pop up. Once you are more aware of these thoughts, one way to counter them is to try to replace them with a more positive thought about your body. For example, can you find at least one thing you like about your body? Maybe it’s your hair. Or your eyes. Or your hands. When you look in the mirror, you could try focusing on the part(s) you like. Or if it’s really hard to find a part you like, try thinking of a reason you’re grateful for your body. For example, if you normally think “I hate my thunder thighs”, you can say “I’m grateful I have two legs that are strong and help me walk every day”. Or maybe you think, “I can’t get rid of this post-pregnancy pouch around my stomach”, you can counter that with, “I’m grateful my body was able to create and carry another human and it’s normal that my body will change after pregnancy.” One more way to counter body-bashing, and my favourite way, is to talk to yourself in a compassionate way. Ask yourself, what would you say to your best friend or daughter who says the same harsh things about their body? It will definitely not be the same response as your harsh self-judgments, I can guarantee! Though it can feel uncomfortable or maybe inauthentic to start talking to yourself more kindly, I can tell you from personal experience, it does get easier and more natural over time. 
• Don’t Engage In Fat-Talk: Fat-Talk is the public form of Body-Bashing. For example, you and your girlfriends are all body-bashing themselves, but out loud. Or you’re criticizing and judging someone else’s weight or size,  while in conversation with another or a group of people. Generally, the more you talk about yours or others’ weight and body with others, the more you will stay stuck in hating your body.
• Respect Body Diversity, Especially Yours:  Living in a fat-shaming culture, it’s understandable how easy it is to judge yourself and others in a negative light, if you or they don’t fit into the “ideal” body type mold. But the images we are bombarded with through mainstream media are mostly very narrow ideas of what the “perfect" body looks like. In reality, the world is made up of many different bodies, of different weights and sizes and shapes and colours. It’s easy to accept that people are different heights or have different coloured eyes, but being in a fat-phobic society, it seems very hard to accept that people come in different weights and sizes. There’s a strong message out there that being in a bigger body means you’re not healthy or that you’re lazy or not taking care of yourself. Though things like exercise and nutrition may play a small role in someone’s weight, the size of someone’s body does not necessarily determine how healthy they are. And it definitely does not determine their worth or moral character as a person. Yet there’s this pervasive message that you’re “good” if you're thin and you’re “bad” if you’re fat. One way to start respecting body diversity is to start exposing yourself to more diverse images of bodies, as well as just learning more about the non-diet approach of health, through reading books, listening to podcasts, and following body positive/non-diet accounts on social media. Here’s a pretty awesome list to get you started. Also, try to notice how often you may have judgmental thoughts about your own body size or others, e.g. “they’re fat so they must have let themselves go.” Read this book to learn more about how your weight has very little to do with your health (or value or worth as a human) and how you can focus on health-promoting behaviours at any size.
• Be Realistic: If you were once at what you believe to be your “ideal” weight, ask yourself, were you happy then? What did you have to do to maintain that weight? When I ask these questions to my clients, I will often hear that they were on a rigid diet or exercising for hours a day. Those are not normal, health-promoting behaviours. Those are dieting and disordered eating types of behaviours. The idea with Intuitive Eating is that by tuning into your hunger and fullness cues and eating foods that nourish and satisfy you, your weight will settle into the place that it feels most comfortable and natural. This may not be what you think your “ideal” body is, but it will at least be in a more stable place (instead of the yo-yo dieting effect of losing and gaining the same 15 or 20 lbs, or more). So would you rather be at a weight that is “ideal” but unsustainable, or be at a weight that is maybe a bit above your “ideal” weight, but it’s sustainable and you’re way happier?
• Do Nice Things For Your Body: Even if you don’t like your body, it doesn’t mean you can’t treat it well. Your body still deserves to be taken care of, no matter how you feel about it. Get regular massages, buy nice smelling soaps, or get your hair styled in a way that makes you feel good.
• Lastly, Don’t Put Your Life On Hold: How many projects, plans or events have you put off because you believe you're not thin enough? I often hear women say that they want to lose weight before even stepping into a gym because they’re afraid of others judging their body. Ironic right? What about dating? Or traveling? Or applying for that job you want? Why should you hold off on doing things that are important to you just because of the size of your body? Make a list of all the things you would do if you were in your “ideal” body. Then pick one of those things and start doing it today, in your here-and-now body. Engaging in activities or projects you enjoy, regardless of your body size, will boost your confidence in all the qualities that are actually important - that is your inner qualities. You deserve to have an engaging and happy life NOW.

This post was jam-packed with all sorts of ways to start practicing Respect Your Body. I’d suggest to just pick one that you feel you could start practicing today, and go for it. As usual stay patient and kind with yourself. You will have days that are harder to respect your body than others. It’s not an overnight change, it’s a process. And remember that by practicing this principle, you’re taking more steps away from diet culture and closer to making peace with your body and food.
  
Next - Read about the ninth principle of Intuitive Eating: Exercise - Feel The Difference.

References
Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2012) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press

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