How Body Neutrality Can Improve Your Fitness Journey

How is it already the end of August?? I swear we just started summer. Anyways, I've been thinking a lot recently about fitness and body image.

For many of us (not all), we start a fitness journey with focus placed on trying to control our physical appearance. While there is nothing wrong with having aesthetic based goals, it can sometimes be a slippery slope with body image.

Today we're discussing How Body Neutrality Can Improve Your Fitness Journey:

1. Greater Mental and Physical Connection

Has exercise ever felt like punishment? Have you dreaded moving your body? When our sole focus is on 'optimizing our workouts for physical appearance' it's easy to ignore what your body might be telling you.

This might come up as losing interest or resentful of your workouts, feeling fatigued, bored, or noticing more aches and pains. Rather than reaping the benefits of movement, you feel defeated.

When you switch your focus to participating in movement that feels pleasant mentally and physically, it allows space for your mind and body to explore other areas of movement you might have never tried before.

If you are determined to only do HIIT exercises because a trainer said it will "burn more fat", but you want nothing more than for the workout to be over once it begins...I encourage you to ask yourself:

 If not weight loss, what do I look for or want from my movement?

2. Positive Relationship with Exercise

There is more to movement than 'burning off calories'. When exercise stops becoming a balancing act between what you want to do and what you think you should do, your relationship with exercise becomes more positive.

Non-weight loss benefits of exercise include:

• Reduce feelings of stress or depression
• Increase your energy level
• Improve sleep
• Empower you by feeling strong, fast, or by having fun!
• Improve balance
• Maintain or improve cognitive function

3. Improved Motivation

When you decouple body size/weight and movement, exercise can become enjoyable again. What is your motivation like for a task that isn't fun or enjoyable? Probably pretty low!

We know external motivation is less likely to last when compared with intrinsic motivation. If weight loss is our main goal with movement (and this is rooted in society's expectations, fatphobia/ anti-fat bias, or thinking thin = healthy), this is not likely to be a long lasting motivation.

4. Freedom to Move How YOU Want

Accepting or feeling neutral about how your body exists as it currently is removes the pressure to conform to society's unrealistic expectations.

Rather than forcing yourself to go to the gym, you may experiment with other forms of movement and find you really enjoy hiking, rollerblading, rock climbing, paddle-boarding, pickleball, etc.

It doesn't mean you can never go to the gym anymore, but that you now have flexibility and openness to meet your needs and wants from movement.

Body neutrality allows you to become intuitive with your movement and appreciate your current abilities, rather than be discouraged.

Last thing...

Adopting a body neutrality mindset can improve your life in more ways than only fitness. I recommend the goal of practicing body neutrality or acceptance to my clients who struggle with body image, as body positivity can feel unattainable or daunting (especially when beginning body image work). Remember that this is a process and not something that will switch overnight. It takes time to unlearn diet culture and recenter yourself.