No matter where you are with your weight management goals, keeping a connection with your body improves your overall well-being.
Weight management can be challenging. You may have limited access to nutritious foods, or you may be so overworked that pouring any extra time or energy into meal planning and cooking sounds exhausting.
Reconnecting with your body is the first step on this journey.
Keep reading to learn some strategies that can help you improve your body awareness and foster a healthier relationship with weight management.
“Some of the challenges with maintaining a healthy weight include learned habits, societal pressures, and nutritional education,” said Tony Allemon, PA-C, a board certified physician assistant.
“Families will tend to pass on their poor connection with food to the next generation, which can worsen food problems over generations. This is why it’s important for families to understand healthy nutrition,” he said.
For example, eating a meal while watching television may cause you to zone out and disconnect from your body.
This may cause you to miss out on the present moment or, at the very least, become unaware of how quickly or how much you’re eating.
According to Allemon, other possible reasons for disconnection include dopamine depletion, anxiety, and stress.
Societal expectations
Body image issues related to weight are now a
These difficulties are often a result of consuming content that can hurt your self-esteem and lead you to resent your body for not matching the thin, muscular images splashed throughout various social media feeds.
“From advertisements to our constant intake of information from social media, it is almost impossible to escape,” Allemon said.
“We are fed an algorithm on social media that can sometimes show us people who are ‘healthy’ and ‘what a body should look like,’” he continued. “But what the algorithm or influencer does not show you is the amount of editing or even surgery it took to obtain a body that is being touted as ‘natural and healthy.’”
Allemon said that overexposure to this type of content can lead to unrealistic body expectations and dampen our dopamine reward system, making us less motivated and energetic and leading to unhealthy nutrition and fitness habits.
Mindful eating is centered on practicing awareness of how a person feels while eating — such as noticing the taste and textures of your foods and the emotions you’re experiencing — and honoring your fullness cues when they come.
Mindful eating is
Allemon also pointed to the connection among food, family, culture, and joy as it relates to mindfulness.
“Food can bring great joy in life and is the root of many memories,” he said.
Choosing movement that brings you joy, such as gardening, bicycling, or dancing, can help you incorporate regular exercise into your routine without making it feel like a chore.
Try to create an exercise plan that feels good to you and aligns with your body’s needs and preferences.
Other habits can reduce stress and promote better sleep, which can help you maintain a moderate weight in the long run.
“I have my clients spend alone time with no outside stimulus,” Allemon said.
He suggested that after waking up, you should not reach for your phone and immediately respond to texts or emails, scroll social media, or even put on a podcast or music.
Instead, he encouraged spending time with your own thoughts, which is generally referred to as meditation.
Becoming aware of negative self-talk and body dissatisfaction is an important first step in improving body image.
Reframing how you think about food and your body can help you practice self-compassion and body kindness.
Appreciating your body’s health and function, rather than focusing on numbers on a scale or on how you look through a camera lens is a good place to start.
“Viewing food as fuel and a utility of making our body function better is something I teach to every patient in the clinic and client,” said Allemon.
For people with eating disorders, Joanna Steinglass, MD, director of research at the Center for Eating Disorders at New York-Presbyterian, said that one of the defining symptoms is some form of disturbance in the experience of one’s body.
“Trying to turn a negative body experience into a positive body experience may be an unrealistic goal for some individuals,” she said.
Instead, Steinglass said it may be more reasonable and less daunting to aim for a neutral experience of your body, at least at first.
“The broader goal might be to experience your body for what it can do and for how it is necessary for all the experiences in life and to focus less on the details,” she added.
“Journaling is a great way to not only build a practice of noticing what you’re eating and seeing where you can make improvements but also for life,” Allemon said.
“Journaling is a disconnect from the world and a reconnect with your mind,” he said, suggesting that you handwrite in a physical journal about your day to keep memories and stories alive. “Journal about how you are feeling so you can fully express yourself and have a way to look back months and years down the line to see your growth.”
Steinglass pointed out that because every person is different, it’s best to consult a licensed professional to help you identify how best to approach weight management and become more accepting of your body.
“By working with a licensed and credentialed clinician with expertise in this area, one can find ways to see things from different perspectives — and this is key to building acceptance,” she said.
For some people, Steinglass said, health requires structured reminders about an eating schedule, and the concept of listening to your body (mindful eating) might be enough.
Similarly, she said that journaling may be helpful for some but may lead to a focus or preoccupation with unhelpful thoughts for others.
“Each of these are best discussed with a treatment provider who can help distinguish useful tools,” she added.
Weight management can be daunting and may cause you to feel disconnected from your body for one reason or another.
Strategies for reconnection, such as eating mindfully, journaling, moving your body regularly, and fostering a positive body image focused on health goals rather than appearance goals, can help you improve your relationship with your body.