Five tips to love your body boost self esteem

5 Tips to Constructing a Better Body Self Esteem:  Certified Nutritionist and Personal Trainer Celebrates Bodies

This is an all-too familiar scenario for 99% of us:
We stand in the mirror and sigh, feeling inadequate.
We look at the number on the scale and say, “If I lose just ten more pounds, I’ll be just right.”
We don’t buy that pair of pants we love because we want to lose five more pounds or go down a size.
We put off today because we think we’ll be better tomorrow.

It’s no wonder. We are bombarded by images of “perfection” every single day. Advertisements, movies, TV shows, billboards, phamaceuticals … all form part of a billion-dollar industry that promotes body anxiety and hate. We are taught to feel shame. And both men and women buy into it.

Health, nutrition, and fitness aren’t punishments for eating and having love handles. In fact, they are ways to celebrate the beautiful bodies we have … we all have! The only way we can truly work toward healthier bodies is to have a healthier way of thinking about and viewing our own bodies and health.

Celebrate your body!

This celebration is not an overnight change of chip, but a systematic re-programming of the way we view our beauty and bodies. I know it’s easy to fall into old habits of putting yourself down. But not today. Start today with a celebration. Start today being positive about who you are today, not who you will be a year form today. Here are five tips to help you start to recognize what a beautiful, amazing body you have and start to celebrate your own beautiful you.

1. Positive Breeds Positive: Look at yourself and write down five things you love about your body. Then add each week to the list. Keep this list VISIBLE (perhaps in your closet or on your bathroom mirror). Read it out loud. And see the beauty in you others already see.

2. Beauty is the Whole Package: Take a moment and think about what makes you smile, feel good. It’s usually when you’re doing something you love – when you’re connected to something that goes way deeper than how you look. Now, repeat. And remember that when you feel that joy, it shines through your exterior as well. Beauty is a state of being, not a state of body.

3. The Golden Rule Applies to You: Do unto others (say unto others) … this applies to you first and foremost. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with the utmost respect, in word and action, and replace every negative with three positives. Just as you wouldn’t tear down your daughter, neighbor or friend, you need to be your best friend. (This also applies to “jokes” and “put downs” said in light.) Today is the day you begin to speak beautiful to yourself.

4. Put Down the Magazines; Turn off the TV: Time to step into the real world. The media do not mirror the reality of the American woman and her body. The average American woman is size 14 (not 4, 6, or 8). Look around you when you go to the café, the mall. Don’t criticize the bodies, but take a look at the variety of shapes, sizes, height of all the people you see. All of these different bodies have unique beauty not usually reflected in the media. Be selective in what you want to see. A wonderful celebration of the uniqueness of everybody is The Butterfly Circus (http://thebutterflycircus.com/short-film/).

5. Use Your Body: To celebrate your body, you have to use it and appreciate its gifts. You don’t need much exercise to reap the benefits http://www.maryjanedetroyer.com/exercise-wonder-drug-new-york-city-certified-personal-trainer/ that have little to do with how you look, instead how you can feel.
Have you sat down to think about what a phenomenal machine your body is? How it moves? How you breathe? How your skin heals after a scratch? These are the things to celebrate.  We cannot necessarily change the way the media portrays bodies, but we can change the way we view, and treat, our own bodies. Exercise, nutrition and health aren’t punishments for how we look, instead celebrations of what our bodies are capable of.



LOVE. YOUR. BODY.

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES:
Endangered Bodies (www.endangeredbodies.org) is a global initiative that challenges the media, fashion industry, pharmaceutical industry and more to stop turning women against themselves.

Dove (http://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns.html) is one of the first international companies that celebrates the variety of women’s bodies, ages, colors, ethnicities, being a mirror to a spectrum of sizes and a catalyst for change in the industry.