5 Ways to Respect Your Body (Even If You Don’t Love It)

May 25, 2022

Loving your body is not always realistic, but there are ways to respect your body during those times you’re not feeling the love. Focus on these 5 things to show yourself some respect to foster more body love.

I think the concept of body positivity is a bit of bullshit. Look, I’m all for you loving your body and thinking positively about it. And I respect the origins of the body positivity movement. However, I just don’t think it’s realistic for most people to think positively about their bodies most of the time.

But what is realistic? Respecting your body.

Even if you don’t love your body and have tons of positive things to say about it, you can respect your body and treat it well. And most of the time when working with clients, I find that respecting your body is the first step to improve your relationship with your body.

What is body respect?

Respect is defined as a feeling of deep admiration for something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

Respecting your body is all about taking care of your body. You CAN respect your body and know to treat it kindly, despite what you see in the mirror and how you feel about it.

Think of body respect as your boss. You don’t have to L-O-V-E your boss, but you better respect them if you want to get ahead in your career. The same thing is true about your body.

Let’s explore these 5 ways to respect your body, even if you don’t love it:

Nourish your body adequately (AKA eat enough)
Eat foods you love – even if you don’t feel worthy of those foods
Speak kindly to yourself
Focus on what your body can do for you versus the way it looks
Meet your basic needs – physically, emotionally and mentally

1. Nourish Your Body Adequately (AKA Eat Enough)

Despite what most people think of when they think of “self-care,” one of the most basic ways you can take care of yourself and respect your body is to nourish your body adequately. Yes, you need to make sure you eat enough.

Under-eating can make you feel ravenous, out of control around food, and more likely to binge later. On the contrary, when you eat enough for your body you can think clearly, have more energy, stabilize your blood sugar, and feel good from food.

How do you nourish your body adequately?

Eat enough for your body. Stop following arbitrary calorie goals and instead focus on eating when you’re hungry and eating enough so you feel satisfied.
Eat a variety of nutrients, including carbohydrates, fats, and protein. You can learn more about balancing your plate in my Ultimate Guide to Balance Your Plate.
Follow your hunger cues. When you delay eating when you’re hungry you’ll feel ravenous. This will make you feel out of control around food later in the day.

2. Eat Foods You Love

Depriving yourself of the foods you love is a way of telling yourself “you don’t deserve to eat this.” That’s no way of treating your body well!

Satisfaction is key to turn off your hunger hormones. This signals to your body that you’ve had enough to eat. Even better, when you eat satisfying foods, you don’t think about food all day.

Eating foods you love is key to respecting your body because it signals to yourself (over and over, because we eat multiple times a day) that you deserve to eat and feel happy from the foods you choose to eat.

Next time you’re ready to eat (honoring your hunger), ask yourself…

What am I really in the mood to eat?
What sounds good to me right now?

Mid-meal check in with yourself and ask: “Is this hitting the spot?”

Not every meal will be the most satisfying meal experience, and that’s OK. It’s important to aim to make most of your meals more satisfying.

3. Speak Kindly to Yourself

You don’t have to love your body everyday. I do encourage you to speak kindly to yourself, even when you don’t feel like it.

This is part of cultivating self-compassion. Self-compassion is showing yourself kindness. Often when I speak to clients about self-compassion I ask “How would you speak to your friend?”

We often bully ourselves, but would never speak to a friend using the same harsh words. We’re often gentler, kinder, and more compassionate to our friends than to ourselves. You want to channel these qualities towards yourself in order to respect your body.

Note that you don’t have to speak positively to yourself all of the time. The key here isn’t to convince yourself of anything. But if you can aim to speak neutrally to yourself you’ll begin to see improvements in your level of body respect.

So instead of “You have the most perfect body,” if you don’t believe that, try “My arms are strong and can carry all of my groceries for me.”

4. Focus on What Your Body Can Do For You

As I began to hint above, it’s important to focus on what your body can do for you. What has your body endured throughout your body?

Some things to consider are…

Long dance rehearsals
Babysitting for long hours
Childbirth
Breastfeeding
Caring for children
Carrying your groceries
Running a 5k, 10k, or even marathon
Getting through your first cycling class
Trying a new pilates class
Traveling through Europe
Hiking a new trail

These are big and small things that your body does for you on an everyday basis. Not every body is capable of all of these things, so celebrating your wins is essential.

5. Meet Your Basic Needs

Are your most basic needs being met? Above we discussed nourishing your body adequately (a physical need), but it’s also important to consider other basic needs that need to be met in order to respect your body. You have physical, mental, and emotional needs that must be met.

These include prioritizing:

Adequate sleep
Stress management
Sexual intimacy
Physical intimacy
Mental health
Physical activity
Basic self-care needs (grooming, showering, etc.)
Wearing clothes that fit your here and now body
Relationships/friendships
And more

Remember, it’s not realistic to always love your body or even like everything about it. But you can start prioritizing R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

If you’re looking for more support to foster a respectful relationship with your body, apply for coaching!