Does your body image impact your fitness results?

Male or female- your body image can become a huge contributor on whether you are achieving your fitness results or not.

Self-love and self-respect are ultimately dictating how fast you are moving forward.

In the end of the day it doesn’t matter how lean you are. You can have a good body image at 15% body fat or at 30% body fat.

A lot of people think that if they lose weight they are going to be happy and no doubt it is going to contribute immensely on how you feel on a day to day basis.

But some people who haven’t worked on their body image end up feeling the same after they have dropped 10% of body fat.

It is important that as part of your health & fitness journey you work on your body image.

If you do so you end up not only achieving your fitness goals but you will feel better about yourself and you will generally be happier.

When we want to find out what our body image is like we need to ask some questions first:

1.) How do you look at yourself in the mirror

2.) How do you talk to yourself?

3.) Do you focus on what’s wrong about your body rather than what’s good/ right?

“You create what you focus on”

1.) How do you look at yourself in the mirror?

Every time you pass by a mirror or you look at yourself at home, do you like what you see?

If you feel negative about yourself when looking in the mirror it will play out in all other areas of life too and you are also moving in the opposite direction of creating the change you are truly after.

If it’s a negative pattern that you are running through when looking at yourself it’s probably been there for quite some time.

Every time you go look at yourself you look at the same areas/ parts of your body you don’t like, over and over again.

This doesn’t mean you can’t change it; first of all you need to become aware of it.

2.) How do you talk to yourself?

What do you think about yourself on a daily basis? Do you chat to yourself in a negative or a positive way?

Is your self dialogue like:

“I feel fat today”

“I’m a mess, I’m not getting anything done”

“I hate doing this…”

….

or more like:

“I feel amazing today”

“I didn’t have a perfect day but hey I got “x, y & z” done”

“Tomorrow I’m going to hit the gym and I’m just going to get a little closer to my goals”

First step here is to become aware of your monologue.

Once you become aware of it you know whether it’s positive or negative.

Now you can start to change it.

If you’ve had a negative one it won’t change overnight; it’s hard work like everything else that pays off immensely later on.

3.) Do you focus on what’s wrong about your body rather than what’s good/ right?

As discussed in point 1- it matters what kind of pattern (positive/ negative) you run about yourself when thinking about yourself or looking at yourself.

Nobody will ever reach “perfection” as there is no such thing.

Instead of aiming for perfection aim for self confidence, aim for the best version of yourself.

If you keep focusing on all the negatives about yourself you will attract more negative.

If you start focusing more on what you like about yourself you will find and see more and more that you like about yourself.

It’s about what you focus on!

So what are the take away points to create a healthy body image?

• Become aware of the patterns you run through on a daily basis
• Start focusing on all the things you like about yourself
• Visualise how you would like the parts you don’t like to be
• Take action to work towards your goals
• Keep repeating positive patterns on a daily basis until they become second nature
• Practice self- love and self- respect
• Become the best version of yourself