Guest Blog, by Lindsay Reid
Lindsay has been a body confidence and relationship with food coach and through her events and coaching has helped hundreds of people feel more confident over the past five years. She helps women feel more free of their body insecurities, free from start-stop dieting and free to enjoy life more. Lindsay is a mum-of-one and lives just outside Glasgow. Here is her guest blog post -
Is your body image impacting your mental health?
The way we feel about ourselves hugely impacts our overall happiness.
And in particular, the way we feel about our bodies can determine how much we enjoy of life.
When we feel negatively towards our body, it affects virtually all aspects of our life, including our
overall mental health, the decisions we make, our aspirations for ourselves, our relationships and
our work….and it can lead to some not-so-helpful coping strategies that we use to try and help
ourselves feel better.
On the flip side, when we feel positive about our body, we tend to have have more energy and
enthusiasm for life, we bring more to our relationships, we have greater self-belief and we tend to
make more helpful choices.
So here’s the interesting part about body confidence.
It’s not how we look that determines our body confidence…….it’s what we THINK about how we
look that determines whether we feel positively or negatively towards our bodies.
It’s the thoughts we have about how we look that either make us feel happy or unhappy with our
bodies.
And the great news is, with a bit of work, we can learn to choose the thoughts we focus on…..and
we can start to choose more helpful thoughts that make us feel good.
One way to start thinking more positively about our bodies is to learn to appreciate them
more……..think about it……your body works every minute of every day to help you do all of the
things you need to do in your daily schedule. It even works hard when you’re asleep!
It heals us, repairs us, protects us constantly….and so much more. Yet for most of us, we look in
the mirror and all we can do is be critical of it.
Every time we move, hug our loved ones, enjoy a meal, deliver a work project, unpack the
shopping or dance in the kitchen, we’ve got our body to thank.
But how often do we ever thank it for these things?
More often than not we speak unkindly to it, we criticise it and we make choices - whether food
choices or otherwise - that don’t always help it feel great.
Over the years, I’ve learned to become friends with my body…..we’re on the same team after all
and that’s how I now see it. So now I try to treat it like a friend.
And in practical terms that looks like…….
��Listening to it more than ever - I am more tuned in now to what my body is telling me….if it’s
hungry, thirsty, tired, full, in need of calm, or lacking in energy, and I act accordingly to give it what
it needs.
��I speak kindly to it. Imagine your body has feelings and is always listening to you - how do you
think it would feel to hear the kinds of things you say to it? I know the things I’ve said to my body in
the past would have lost me many friends if I’d said it to them! But now that I think of it that way, I
am careful about the words I choose when I speak about myself.
��Moving it in a way that feels good - our bodies like to be moved and I take the view that I’m lucky
to be able to move mine as much as I want to. So I do the kinds of movement I enjoy and don’t
bother with the ones I don’t love - so for me that means avoiding the gym, but walking and jogging
instead.
��Making choices that help it feel good. When it comes to my food choices, I restricted myself and
had a negative relationship with food for many years and at times used it, and alcohol, to try and fill
an emotional gap in my life. FYI, that never works no matter how long you keep trying it! So now, I
really focus on making food choices based on how they make me feel….and not on how they make
me look. So most of the time I eat foods I enjoy and that help me feel good afterwards, I eat when
I’m physically hungry and stop when I’m full….and I think less about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ choices and
more about being more intuitive in my choices.
And that’s my last point I guess. Do I make the ‘perfect’ choices for myself all of the time? Nope.
Because I’m human. And so are you.
All I ever aim for is progress over perfection and I know if, MOST of the time I make choices that
help me feel good, then I’ll probably feel good. I never aim to do anything ALL of the time.
So try not to see your choices as a matter of success or failure….be understanding and
compassionate towards yourself.
If you make a choice that you don’t feel great about, don’t make yourself feel worse by punishing
yourself - instead think about the kindest thing you can do for yourself….do that instead and move
forward positively.
Let’s make the most of these amazing bodies that we have - let’s look after them, move them,
nourish them, rest them and be kind to them….I promise you there’s no better feeling.
I hope this all helps.
Lindsay xx
