3 Tips to Improve Body Image in the New Year

It's a new year and everywhere you look you'll find advice for getting a "new you in 2022!" In today's show we take a different, unconventional approach to looking at the most effective ways to meet our goals this year. I'll share with you the three secrets to meeting your body image and other goals this year: Look Up, Look Out, and Look Away. Mentioned in Today's Show: ReFOCUS21 online body image and food freedom course: https://comparedtowho.me/refocus-christian-body-image-course-online/ Compared to Who? the blog Compared to Who? book Get on the Compared to Who? Insiders list and take the body image quiz (and get a free walking workout) The Burden of Better Book: How a Comparison Free Life Leads to Joy, Peace, and Rest Other Episodes and Podcast Series Mentioned Today: 30 Days to Pray for Your Body Image: https://comparedtowho.me/category/30-days-to-pray-for-body-image/ Spring Break Free - 30 Day Series to Break Free from Body Image Issues: https://comparedtowho.me/category/spring-break-free-body-image-course/ Why Self Love is not the answer and What the Bible Teaches About Self Love, Self Esteem and Body Image: https://comparedtowho.me/what-the-bible-teaches-on-self-esteem-self-love-and-body-image/ Here's a snippet of the transcript from the end of today's show: Okay – elephant in the room this time of year is always 'How am I going to lose weight." Or, most of us have been programmed now to say, "How am I going to get healthier" – We've learned that diet culture is bad and so now we use the word health to make it all sound better! Who can argue with health? According to the BMI chart, diet culture, and what we see on Instagram need to lose a few pounds to be "HEALTHY". Now –again – we'll deal with whether or not these systems and influencers are the best authorities in a second – but let's leave it for now. It doesn't really matter what they say - we feel it? Right. The holidays were fun. We ate foods we wouldn't normally eat and part of us, just physiologically, craves a healthier way. Our pants feel tighter and we don’t want to go buy new ones because we ate too many cookies in December. Friend, I get it. But, here's what I want to encourage you with today. Feeling shame over your holiday eating, feeling pressure to "lose the weight" since it's January, and going back to the chains of dieting or following this plan or that program is not going to put you where you want to be this time next year. How do I know? What if this IS your year to actually stick to it and make it work? I know because diets don't work – at least not long term. That's why my third tip for you today is when you see all the "Get a new body QUICK" messages you choose to LOOK AWAY. So last Fall I interviewed several dieticians and got turned on to the concept of Intuitive Eating in a more formal way. I have almost finished reading the updated version of the original Intuitive Eating book – and I'm flabbergasted. So many of the things I write about in Compared to Who? that came from experiential knowledge for me – were written in that book! No wonder some people didn't think the book was as original as I thought it was! The Intuitive Eating book – though not a Christian book at all – even talks about body image idolatry! It doesn't use those terms exactly, but it talks about how diet culture has created an image we should all ascribe and bow down to – That sounds a lot like idolatry to me! I know God set me free from body image issues almost a decade ago. But, the lingering threads of decades of dieting were still hanging on there. When I wrote Compared to Who? I didn't really know what to do about it – I knew that the heart issues surrounding body image had to be dealt with before the physical. Yet, I wouldn't have told you at that point that diets were bad. Honestly, I was probably limiting carbs or sugar-fasting while writing that book. At the time I believed that dieting was more about my health goals and body image was more about my spiritual struggle. Yes, I saw how they connected – I saw how it may have been God's grace to not ZAP me skinny everytime I started a new diet – because that "achievement" would have made me bow to the body image idol and serve it. Now, I'll be honest, I'm still trying to sort it all out. Is it okay to want to lose weight? Part of me still believes it is. But, after my interviews this Fall – I wonder if the REASON I believe that has more to do with the lies and beliefs I've adopted from diet culture instead of the truth that God made people in different body shapes and sizes. I'm still sorting this out my friends. I'm also still sorting out how to just "BE" with food. As we talked about in the first part of the show – I know what to DO with food. Tell me the rules, and I'll follow them. But, to just be FREE with food, with no rules. That feels scary and dangerous. As I'm learning more about intuitive eating though – it feels like this principle of being free with food is the most important one. Yet, it's the most difficult for those of us who come from a dieting or disordered eating background. We are used to living our lives on a food schedule. We follow the food rules well, and the results are good. We don't follow the rules – and the results (in other words – how are body looks) is bad. 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