Intuitive Eating Principle Eight: Respect Your Body

This blog post will discuss everything you need to know about the eighth principle of Intuitive Eating: Respecting Your Body. 

If you’re brand new to Intuitive Eating, you’ll want to start with this blog post, which breaks down what Intuitive Eating is and how it might be beneficial for you. 

If you need a refresher, I’ve also gone over the previous seven principles in separate blog posts, which are Rejecting the Diet Mentality, Honoring Your Hunger, Making Peace With Food, Challenging The Food Police, Feeling Your Fullness , Discovering The Satisfaction Factor, and Coping With Your Emotions Without Using Food.

Getting Rid of The Negative Thoughts You Have About Your Body

Do you hate your body?

If so, how long have you hated your body?

How have those thoughts served you in the past, and how are those thoughts serving you now?

Has hating your body motivated you to change? Has that change been sustainable?

Or, have the negative thoughts you’ve had about your body put you in an unending cycle of misery?

If you find that the thoughts you have about your body are not serving you positively, perhaps looking at it from a different perspective might be worth your time.

Respect Your Body Does NOT Mean Love Your Body

Sometimes, when people read this principle, they interpret the meaning as loving your body.

While ultimately that is the goal, it is a pretty hefty goal.  Especially if you’ve spent so much time hating your body.

Instead, the way I like to frame this is to think about a person in your life that you may not necessarily like or get along with, but that you show respect to.

This can look like an authoritative figure at work, or an elder in your family.

What are some ways you show respect to them?

Maybe you listen to them when they ask you to do something. Maybe you give them space by acknowledging their achievements.

You can take this same mentality and apply it to the way you treat your body.

What Does It Mean to Respect Your Body?

Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch describe respecting your body as treating it with dignity and meeting its basic needs.

Treating your body with dignity means to listen to your body and not tuning it out.

Basic needs include nourishment through food and comfort through movement or rest.

In other words, respecting your body has nothing to do with admiring how your body looks, but admiring all the things your body can do.

The Benefits of Respecting Your Body

Whether you accept it or not, your body is your home for the rest of your life.

At the very least, you owe it to yourself to give yourself some compassion.

And when you do give yourself compassion, you’ll find that nourishing your body with healthful foods will naturally follow this. You’ll feel better about your choices because you WANT to do right by your body, and not because you need to see a specific number on the scale.

What Does Respecting Your Body Look Like?

The simplest way you can respect your body is by accepting it for what it is.

For example, I am a 5’2 Asian woman. No matter how hard I try, I am never going to be a 5’7 white woman. Being overly critical of my body for not being what I want it to be prevents me from seeing all the great things it actually is.

If you have been ignoring hunger, respecting your body can also look like nourishing your body and not waiting until primal hunger kicks in. This can look like preparing meals and snacks ahead of time or finding time in your schedule to eat.

Ways To Practice Intuitive Eating Principle Eight

Here are three ways that you can start practicing Intuitive Eating Principle Eight RIGHT NOW!

Practice #1-Appreciation Exercise

One way you can practice Intuitive Eating principle eight right in the comfort of your own home is to write down all the ways you are unique.

 What are some things that you appreciate about yourself that have nothing to do with your weight or size?

Maybe it is the way you laugh, or the way you stand up for others. Perhaps it is your ability to bake amazing desserts.

If you can’t think of anything, try to think of how a friend or a family member you love would describe you. What would they say are your greatest attributes?

Practice #2: Cleaning Out Your Closet

Another exercise you can try is clearing out your closet of clothes that don’t fit your current body.

This could look like getting rid of a pair of jeans you’ve saved for when you get back to your high school weight.

Or, it could look like baggy clothes you’ve gotten over the years to hide any changes your body may have went through.

Along with getting rid of clothes, if your budget allows, you may want to treat yourself to clothes that fit your current body.

Maybe you can find a workout outfit that is comfortable and encourages movement.

Maybe you have an upcoming event that you need to shop for.

Practice #3: Noticing Your Environment

If you haven’t already noticed, weight stigma is all around us.

Diet talk is so common in our culture that we have become numb to it.

For this exercise, you’ll want to go through your day as normal. As you’re going about your day, try to see if you can identify all the times that you hear someone bashing their body, or contributing to “fat talk”.

I often find that there is a LOT of body bashing happening in office spaces amongst coworkers.

I encourage you not to engage in the talking, or even call it out. Just simply notice how often it happens.

If you find yourself engaging in the body bashing, see if you can flip the thought from a negative to a positive. For example, if you hate your arms, try to think of a way that your arms are useful to you.

Conclusion

There’s no sugar coating it-learning how to respect your body is HARD.

After all, you may be coming from a place where you’ve spent years tearing yourself down.

It’s going to take a lot more than a few words/phrases of affirmation for you to start respecting your body.

But trust me when I say that the inner work will be WORTH IT.

Further Research

If you’re interested in learning more about Intuitive Eating Principle Eight, you can read this post written by Evelyn Tribole!

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