“Wow, you look amazing. What’s your secret?’
This is what a friend I hadn’t seen in a few years told me in 2017 at a wedding. At the time, I was so excited to be seen and to have my changed body seen as something positive. Six years later, I still think about that interaction often.
In the spring of 2016, I started a medication for my chronic migraines that can also be prescribed as a weight loss medication. Losing weight was not my intention at the time and I didn’t even know if this would be a side effect I would have. At the same time that I started the medication, I also started working out regularly. I found a routine I liked, got into strength training and really found my stride. A year later, I had lost about twenty pounds. I was so proud of all the “hard work” I had done and to see such a big change, even though I had always struggled with weight loss in the past. So when my boyfriend commented on my body, I felt good at that moment.
When a person comments on someone else’s body, it usually comes from a good place. But you never know where someone else is in their own body journey and therefore how they will interpret that compliment.
A person who has lost a significant amount of weight may have just lost a family member or be dealing with a serious illness. A person who has gained weight may have just started a new medication or gone through a stressful time in their life. Perhaps a person has gained weight after recovering from an eating disorder. A person’s weight can fluctuate for many reasons, and many of them may not be intentional. This is just one of many reasons why we have no right to comment on someone else’s body.
When my boyfriend told me I looked good, I felt validated. But a few years later, when I stopped taking that drug and gained those twenty pounds back, even though I still had a regular workout routine, I heard that echo over and over again. And I started to wonder…don’t i look amazing anymore? What will this person think the next time they see me? Our words have incredible impact. Either just in the moment or in the years to come.
Upon reflection, when I was told, “You look amazing,” what I really heard was, “You don’t look amazing before. If you win it back, you won’t look amazing.”
I now know that my “secret” to losing twenty pounds from 2016-2017 was due to medication. I probably still would have lost the weight even if I didn’t exercise regularly. It was ultimately out of my control.
And even then I remember never feeling like it was enough. I was never quite happy with my body, even when it was smaller. I think about that body often and when I occasionally miss that body, I remember that even then I wasn’t really happy. The size of my body rarely has anything to do with how I feel about it.
I am currently at my highest weight and more at peace with my body than ever. But it took me a while to get to that place. Part of what helped me find peace is learning about body neutrality — a way of looking at your body (physically and emotionally) with a neutral attitude.
I remember countless times when someone else commented on my body, starting from my childhood. As a society, we are taught that smaller is better. That we are more important and beautiful when we live in smaller bodies. We have been subjected to weight bias our entire lives and have internalized so much of it. Phrases like ‘bikini body’, ‘burn your body fat’, ‘burn your calories’ and ‘you need to lose weight’ have been haunting us since we were old enough to know what they meant. Every time we comment on someone else’s body, we reinforce this weight bias. When you compliment someone on their weight loss, you’re telling them they’re more appreciated when they’re smaller. And you reinforce that idea about yourself.
While society tears us down for not being thin enough, pretty enough, or strong enough, it also tells us to just “love ourselves.” As someone who has tried for years to “love my body” I can attest that it is impossible to love your body 100% of the time. And it’s also unnecessary. Trying to just stay neutral about our bodies is a much easier task. Bodies are wild and wonderful things. They change and evolve over time. Our bodies are the homes we will always live in. They can allow us to do so many things — hug our family members, carry all the groceries on a trip, sit outside on a beautiful day, just exist.
We all want to be validated and seen. And we can validate others and show that we see them without commenting on their physical appearance. By telling a friend, “you’re such a supportive and loyal person,” we connect with who they are as a person, not just the body they live in. When we see someone for the first time in years, asking them what’s the best thing about What happened since you last saw them shows an interest in their life, as opposed to “you look great.”
All bodies deserve respect, from others and from ourselves. I always encourage being self-compassionate rather than self-loving. Sometimes this compassion looks like recognizing a “bad body image day” and going with the flow. For me this often involves wearing clothes that I feel comfortable and at ease in, avoiding ‘body checking’ (looking in mirrors to see what your body looks like or obsessively touching or pressing parts of your body), going I walk or move my body in some way, and I nourish my body in a way that feels good in the moment.
It is much easier to tear yourself down than to build yourself up. It takes work to find acceptance for a body that you can have a very volatile journey with. But we are all on this journey together. No one is alone in having bad body image days. They can happen to anyone at any time, regardless of body size. But when you learn to be compassionate with yourself in these moments, you begin that path to acceptance and neutrality. By leaning into neutrality and away from negative self-talk or toxic positivity, I have found relative peace with my body. She is constantly changing.
- I challenge you to open yourself to acceptance
- I challenge you to stop comparing yourself to other people
- I challenge you to compliment others based on their worth as a person, not their appearance
- I challenge you to look within your own weight biases and begin to break them down
- I challenge you to recognize that all bodies deserve respect
Guest blog post by Helen Doherty, Tier 2 Personal Trainer and HWX Instructor at Healthworks Cambridge
