Thank you to Esther Kane for letting me share this recent article on the ELM Blog. If you have a body, you should read this post;)
SS
Loving Your Body
Exactly as It Is
Seeing that
February 3-9th is Eating Disorders Awareness Week, I’d like to do my
part to eradicate eating disorders by sharing a part of my
book, It’s
Not About the Food: A Woman’s Guide to Making Peace with Food and Our
Bodies”. If
you find this helpful, please forward it on to someone else who could use it and
start supporting your sisters out there by becoming ‘Body Image Warriors’. It
makes a huge difference! Also, if you would like to share your stories and tips
about loving your body regardless of shape or size, please send them to me at:
esther@estherkane.com and I will
publish the ones I feel will be of help to my
readers.
Esther’s “Top 10” Tips for Loving Your
Body”:
1. Focus on what magnificent things your body allows you to
DO, rather than how it LOOKS.
2. Keep an index card in your wallet or day timer with a
list of 10 positive things about yourself, excluding physical attributes. Read it over when you get “fat
head”.
3. Wear clothes you like that feel comfortable, especially
materials that feel luxurious against your skin.
4. Throw out your “thin clothes”! Only keep clothes that fit you really nicely
NOW and get rid of “the ones I’ll wear when I’m ____ size
again.”
5. Do the activities you love to do regardless of your
shape and size- don’t stop doing what you love because of what you look like on
the outside!
6. Hang out with others who aren’t obsessed with their size
and shape and what they eat; but those who focus more on enjoying the fabulous
gift that is called life instead.
7. Remind yourself that you are beautiful exactly as you
are because you are a child of the Creator/God/The Universe/__________(fill in
the blank!)
8. Move your body in ways that leave you feeling strong,
exhilarated, flexible, and centered and do it
regulary.
9. Learn to tune into your body: Eat when you are hungry.
Rest when you are tired. Get out and move when your body needs
it.
10. Stop reading fashion magazines and following movie
stars, thinking they’ve got perfect lives.
They don’t- most of them have full-blown eating disorders. Find
alternative publications that celebrate and honour women for all aspects of
their being.
Learn to Love ‘the Skin You’re In’
Exercises:
Write a list of ten positive things
about yourself, excluding physical attributes. Copy this page out onto an index
card and keep it in your wallet or day timer or somewhere else where you will
notice it daily.
Write about what clothes you like that
feel comfortable, especially materials that feel luxurious against your skin.
Homework: start wearing them regularly
and notice how you feel in them.
Make a list of the clothes you own that
make you feel bad about your body when you look at them or wear
them.
Homework: give them to your favourite
charity and for each item you get rid of, replace it with a piece of clothing
that you wrote about in the previous question.
Write a list of all of the physical
activities you enjoy doing but avoid because of how you look.
Homework: Do one of
them!
