Mirror, Mirror: The Importance of Body Image After Weight Loss

February 6, 2023

The Importance of Body Image After Weight Loss: Body image and the importance of it starts with your personal self-talk, your inner dialogue. Too often, as humans, we tend to allow our inner critic to not say the nicest things. We also tend to focus on the parts of us that we don’t favor and avoid the image of the whole person. We tend to look only at our face and detach from the body or vice versa prior to our health journey and change. We tend to have conflicting talk expecting outcomes while speaking negatively. We then decide that we want to feel better in our own skin and have the expectation that the relationship will be productive once we lose weight and get healthy.

There may be days where the expectation is met and days where the lifelong detachment glares at you and you need to reconnect with your precious body. The good news is that there are strategies to aid in the repair, development, and sustained strength of your body image and self-talk.

The Importance of Body Image After Weight Loss

Below are some tips and strategies to enable your inside to match your outside and find, engage, establish, and sustain a healthy body image after weight loss.

Love yourself inside and out. Sit down with a journal or any writing devices and ask yourself: What are 3 things I can appreciate about myself? This can be simple or complex traits or behaviors. The important part is to appreciate yourself both for the little things and the things you may take for granted. This is where you start or continue to recognize and engage “the inside.”

Honor your body now, even while you work to make it the best it can be. If it’s hard right now to do, that’s OK. Start by respecting your body. Focus on your self-talk with motivation, gratitude, and appreciation. You’ll reach your emotional and physical health goals when you stop rebelling against your body and ignoring the positives. As you accept your body as the treasured gift it is, taking good care of it becomes your only option. Your body is yours to have and hold forever and you deserve to feel good in your own skin. Start with appreciation, gratitude, and the honor of your body.

Many people feel discouraged when their weight stabilizes, or they are not losing weight fast enough. They then give up too quickly because “I am making all this effort and I don’t see results” and/or “why should I keep trying if I’m only losing X amount of weight and I have a lot more to go” and /or “I’m so tired of all the effort I need to put in all the time, I just want a break”. These are all common thoughts. Permanent weight loss takes time. When you feel defeated, re-evaluate all the components of you: nutrition, behaviors, medical, hydration, and exercise.  Use this time as an opportunity to learn. When you investigate all the components of you, you will feel more confident with understanding what variables may be impacting you and your weight loss.

Gathering this data takes a moment of defeat. Take that “I give up” and transform it into a moment of understanding, behavior change, and empowerment. You will feel connected to both your mind and body. You will not only continue to lose weight responsibly, but you will also become a more confident person in the process, thus resulting in engaging a strong body image.

It’s normal to waver sometimes while learning new lifestyle habits and testing yourself consciously or unconsciously with old habits. What matters is what you do about it. What do you do about the curveball, do you catch it or let it fall? Use these opportunities, these natural curve balls, to reinforce yourself. For example, if you make a poor choice, tell yourself with no judgment, “it’s ok, I will not throw away a day for a moment. I will not have negative self-talk of defeat. It’s ok, I’m human and I feel confident with my decisions.” Each time you persevere, each time you are present, you will increase confidence and develop new strategies to catch the curve ball. Confidence comes from the inside, which will engage and enhance a stronger body image.

Focus on where you’re headed instead of preoccupying about where you are. See your goals, create a conscious image of what your goals look like and feel like. It’s difficult to make progress if you dwell on self-criticism, failure, or the yesterdays. What you focus on becomes the map your brain uses for its direction. Shift attention away from challenges and shortcomings and concentrate on the positives and strengths. Use your yesterdays as a platform to learn what works and what doesn’t and to optimize the thoughts of “what can I do differently to optimize my now, my today”. These are the opportunities to validate and visualize. The visual focus on your goals can inspire you to succeed and makes reaching your goals accessible.

Every time you receive a compliment, write it down in a journal or any documenting device. If you’re having a rough day, take your journal out and relive that positive feeling you felt when you first received that compliment.

If you come across a struggle, be your own best friend. Beating yourself up will erode and diminish your self-esteem and body image. Be a kind and supportive friend to yourself. And remember to ask yourself what you can learn from your stumble and if there is an opportunity in this situation to build on. Then take that new knowledge you gain and move forward. Remind yourself, “I love me, and I trust me.”

Be you, learn about you from the inside-out. Learning about you will further establish a healthy body image from the inside out. Identify your thoughts about your body. Create a list of these questions:

1. What does my body do for me?
2. What I love about my body is….
3. What’s unique about me?
4. What can I do to help my body stay strong and healthy? 
5. My body makes me happy when…
6. I appreciate my body for….
7. My top 5 things I like about me are…

When we create and establish a healthy body image, we create a productive, functional emotional map for our brains to follow daily. With a positive body image and kindness, healthy self-talk becomes the foundation of you, your self-esteem and confidence both inside and out.

Love you and the person looking back at you.

Dr. Willo Wisotsky is a NY State Licensed Psychologist and is affiliated with New York Bariatric Group. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Willo Wisotsky is a NY State Licensed Psychologist and is affiliated with New York Bariatric Group. Dr. Wisotsky has committed her research and clinical practice to the field of eating disorders and obesity with its related medical and mental health comorbidities. Dr. Wisotsky practices from a Behavioral Medicine approach with an emphasis on improving overall well being, increasing mindfulness, motivation, quality of life and health. Read more articles from Dr. Wisotsky!

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