How I Came To Love My Body After Years Of Hating It

Every morning the summer after high school, I used to have seven almonds and a cup of coffee with one tablespoon of sugar and two tablespoons of half and half for breakfast. 159 calories to start the day. I would go to work and eat a Nature Valley granola bar for lunch. 190 calories. At dinner, I would usually eat a salad with tuna. 20 calories for the salad, 194 for the can of tuna, 214 for the whole meal. I had maybe one snack throughout the day, probably about 100 calories. I ate about 600-700 calories per day when I should have been eating at least 1200 for a person of my size with my lifestyle. I weighed 105 pounds by the end of that summer. Here’s how I learned to love my body.

Calorie counting

I don’t count calories anymore, but these numbers are still etched into my mind. I saw food as an enemy, something that I had to battle with and keep track of down to each calorie. I dreaded eating, even when I felt nauseous and lightheaded every time I stood up. I slept at least 12 hours a night, usually going to bed around 9 and waking up at 9 for work. I had no energy, I felt irritable all the time, and my anxiety got worse.

Recognizing I was hurting my body

Why did I do it if I felt so horrible? I hated my body and I thought if I could finally get below 100 pounds I would be happy and feel better. But that didn’t happen.

The first time I made myself throw up after eating dinner, I remember thinking “I can’t do this anymore.” I was shaking, crying and weak on the bathroom floor as I was quite literally forcing my fingers down my throat. All I could think was “my body doesn’t want to do this.”

I was forcing my body to do things that were unnatural, like only eating 600 calories a day and then throwing a substantial part of them back up. I was torturing myself.

Caring for my body

My body showed up for me every day. It got me out of bed, it allowed me to function in society, and I wasn’t showing it the care it deserved. I realized how lucky I was to have a body that was healthy aside from what I was doing to it. It wasn’t immediate love, more just appreciation and recognition of how I was harming myself.

I have been a vegetarian since 2016, but I definitely wasn’t eating healthy and getting the full health benefits of cutting out meat while I was severely restricting myself. I started caring more about what I ate and actually cooking fulfilling meals for myself instead of counting out my daily almonds.

Loving healthy food

Learning to truly love food and care about what I was eating helped me learn to love my body. Once I started eating right, I felt better overall and was able to see that my body was constantly there for me even when I was putting it through hell. I started cooking every day, looking more into healthy meat alternatives and really enjoying everything I put in my body. Making myself feel good soon became more important than making myself look good had been.

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Listening to the advice I gave my friends

Around this time, some of my friends were struggling with the same body-related issues as I was, and when they told me about it, I offered advice that I realized I wasn’t following myself. I would tell them things like “no one else sees you that way” or about the necessity of a healthy and fulfilling diet while I subsequently destroyed myself. I felt like such a hypocrite.

After this, I started trying to see my body as a friend instead of an enemy. I realized how damaging my behavior was and I worked every day to correct it. The hardest part, but the most important, was learning to stop caring about what the scale said and focus more on how I felt. Realizing the superficiality of that number I saw below my feet was so freeing; I stopped feeling like I had a goal to reach and restricting my diet became unnecessary.

I used to weigh myself twice a day; once in the morning and once at night. These days, my weight doesn’t even cross my mind and it’s so liberating to be free from the scale and just happy with myself and love my body no matter what it says.

This is how I’ve learned to love my body. Have you ever struggled with your body image? Tell us your story in the comments.

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