Today, we’re constantly bombarded with photos and videos of stunningly beautiful social media influencers and TikTok and Instagram models with picture-perfect bodies. The consensus is in; it’s affecting body image, especially in teens. In this day and age, how do you feel comfortable in a bigger body?
Here’s how to become more comfortable in your body:
- Diversify your social media feed
- Take social media breaks
- Move your body
- Get to know your body
- Find what you like
- Use positive self-talk
- Treat your body
- Thank your body
- Dress in a way you like
- Fake it until you make it
Building body confidence is not an overnight process, but with these tips, you can get on the road to feeling comfortable in your own skin. Keep reading, as you definitely won’t want to miss our advice ahead!
10 Ways to Build Comfort and Confidence in Your Body
1. Diversify Your Social Media Feed
When you scroll through social media and see (seemingly) perfect person after perfect person, you’re naturally going to do what anyone would in that situation. You’re going to compare yourself to them.
Why aren’t you as pretty as her? Why aren’t you as skinny? How is she so perfectly toned everywhere?
It used to be that editing photos required computer software. Nowadays, people can edit photos on their smartphones using a bevy of apps. The results are very discreet too.
Business Insider reports that looking at doctored photos increases one’s depression and anxiety while lessening self-esteem.
Fortunately, for every perfectly slim Instagram model, there are a handful more body-positive accounts you can follow.
These women keep it real, showing off rolls, cellulite, and other quote-unquote unflattering areas that most people want to keep hidden.
Seeing these kinds of bodies as you scroll through social media will remind you that you’re not the only bigger girl in a sea of perfectly poised, tremendously trim Instagram models.
Plus, there’s another benefit.
Witnessing a girl on your feed wear that dress or that bikini when she’s your size or larger can inspire you to take the plunge. After all, she did it, and she looked great. Plus, look how many positive comments she got!
You might decide to step into something equally as daring. Who knows? You could be complimented as well!
2. Take Social Media Breaks
Even if you load up your social media feed with bopo women that have bodies like yours, it’s still always a good idea to disconnect and log out for a while.
We’d recommend that especially if you find that after scrolling through TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram that you feel worse about yourself and that this happens consistently.
Besides the effects on your mental health, which we mentioned above, McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, writes that using social media can even make you more likely to be physically ill.
People can’t help but use it though. According to McLean, social media “activates the brain’s reward center by releasing dopamine.”
In other words, it’s addictive. Thus, it’s not always easy to give up social media, but you will be better off for it.
According to the parenting resource Parenta, by taking a social media break, you can enjoy the following perks:
- You’ll have more free time (Statista says that the average person spends 147 minutes or 2.45 hours on social media per day) that you can use to build relationships, exercise, partake in hobbies, or learn something new.
- You’ll feel less anxious considering that using social media is proven to raise a person’s anxiety levels.
- You’ll be less depressed, which could in turn help you feel better about yourself.
How long of a social media detox you take is up to you, but the longer the break, the better the benefits.
Maybe try a three-day break at first, then a seven-day break the next time. See how long you can stretch it!
By the way, a detox means a total detox. You can’t stop using Instagram but still go on Facebook. It’s all social media or none.
3. Move Your Body in Ways You Find Fun
You have plenty of options for becoming more comfortable in your body that goes beyond your social media habits (or lack thereof).
Why not try getting out there and moving your body?
Don’t get us wrong – we’re not saying you have to exercise to lose weight.
That in itself is the problem. The prevalent assumption is that people only exercise to lose weight, yet that’s simply not true. Some people exercise just to maintain their weight. Others want to build muscle.
There’s no need to vilify exercise, especially when it can be so fun! Rather than limit yourself to the confines of the gym, find a means of exercise that’s enjoyable for you.
Maybe that’s yoga, cycling, swimming, tai chi, hiking, rappelling, roller derby…the list goes on and on.
When you like the kind of exercise you’re doing, you’ll want to keep doing it.
It’s no secret that exercises release endorphins, which are also known as the feel-good hormone. Between the enjoyment of the exercise and the endorphins, you may build exercise into your regular routine.
Plus, exercising is a great way to see and appreciate what your body can do. You can set new limits for yourself such as running a quarter-mile or lifting 50 pounds, and eventually, you’ll get there!
4. Get to Know Your Body
Think about all the things that are comfortable for you. Your route to and from work, your friends, your Friday night Netflix routine.
The reason these things are comfortable is that they’re familiar.
So that begs the question – just how familiar are you with your body?
If you shy away every time you look in a mirror and constantly cover yourself around the clock (except when you’re showering), then the answer is not very.
Since your body isn’t familiar to you, no wonder you’re uncomfortable with it.
Although it’s not going to be easy, you need to take time to get to know your body, like really get to know it.
Maybe that entails you spending time naked. Not just a minute of being naked after you get out of the shower, but a good chunk of time.
Look at yourself in the mirror. Get to know every curve, every angle, every side.
Your mind is going to be filled with a thousand thoughts: you’re too fat, your stomach isn’t cute, and your butt isn’t round enough.
Try to tune those out for now (we’ll tell you how shortly). Just look at yourself.
Then do it again the next day, and again until you find that you’re comfortable with your body.
You could even touch your body, and not necessarily in a sexual way (although that’s fine too!). Get to feel your curves and what your skin looks like.
Again, it’s all about building up that sense of familiarity.
Your body is your home, so you should be intimately familiar with it. Once you are, the comfort should naturally follow.
5. Pick What You Like About Yourself
Ask any woman and she’ll tell you she has trouble spots. It’s not just bigger women either, but smaller women too! They may wish they had a bigger bust or curvier hips just like you wish you had a smaller stomach or a thigh gap.
Those trouble spots can become so magnified that they’re all you see and focus on when you look in the mirror.
The next time you gaze upon your stunning visage, here’s what to do.
Set aside what you don’t like and focus on what you do like instead.
Maybe you have gorgeous hair or a great complexion. Perhaps you have beautiful eyes or skin so soft it makes babies jealous. You might have a nice bust, great legs, strong arms, or powerful shoulders.
Whatever it is, focus on it instead. If you have more than one thing you like about yourself, then focus on more than one thing.
Then, play up those features, be that through makeup, shoes, or clothing (or even all three)!
6. Use Positive Self-Talk or Body Neutrality
As you go about developing comfort and thus confidence in your body, you have to understand that setbacks will happen.
Perhaps you go to try on a dress for a big party on your calendar, but you’re bloating from PMS and the dress fits you terribly.
Maybe you revisit social media after a month’s break (go you!) and you see post after post featuring gorgeous models.
Either way, you’re feeling terrible about yourself.
Sometimes a bad body image doesn’t need a source. You may wake up feeling bad about yourself.
What do you do in these situations? Positive self-talk is always good. Remind yourself how incredible your body is. Think about the parts of you that you do like.
Monitor the thoughts running through your head and be willing to police them. Imagine that the thoughts you have were being directed towards a friend.
Would you ever blatantly call a friend fat? No, of course not! Would you point out her trouble areas and taunt her about them? Definitely not!
So ask yourself why it’s okay to do the same to yourself. You may just find yourself thinking kinder about your own body.
If positive self-talk doesn’t work, you can always rely on body neutrality.
Rather than put your body at the forefront–good or bad–you shift to a neutral stance on it. You might look in the mirror and acknowledge that you have a body, but don’t go further than that.
Body neutrality gives you a chance to put your body thoughts on the backburner so a bad body image day doesn’t derail your productivity.
7. Treat Your Body
Your body is your home, as we said, and what do we do with our homes? We keep them clean. We appreciate them and love them.
You can do the same for your body today. Perhaps you whip up your favorite nourishing homecooked meal for dinner tonight.
You might decide to buy those expensive skin oils or body lotions that you’ve had on your online wishlist for months now because hey, you deserve it (and you do!).
Maybe you take a long, soaking bath with some candles and ambient music. Or make that a bubble bath.
You can even treat yourself to a spa day complete with a full-body massage that’s sure to put your muscles at ease. Go alone or bring some girlfriends!
When you treat your body in these ways, you respect it. That respect breeds comfort, which could in turn breed confidence.
After all, by booking a spa day or buying expensive skincare products, you’re proving that you’re worth it and that your body deserves the best!
8. Thank Your Body for All It Does
When you start to feel bad about yourself because you don’t have a perfectly flat stomach or toned arms, stop that line of thinking and begin thinking more broadly about everything your body does.
Sure, it’s not the perfect ideal of beauty in the 2020s, but you know what your body is capable of? So much!
You have working legs that can take you anywhere you want to go. You have arms that can pull people into a big bear hug, and hands that can knead or type or sew. You have feet that keep you balanced, organs that keep you healthy, and a heart that keeps you alive.
Beauty standards change. Society went from thinking that the curvy Marilyn Monroe was the penultimate definition of beauty to skinny models like Kate Moss. One day, the pendulum might swing back the other way.
Until it does, by appreciating the way your body carries you through this amazing thing called life, you’ll foster a much deeper appreciation for it.
9. Dress Your Body in a Way You Like
As much as spending time naked can increase your body comfort, you need to get dressed and get out into the world at some point.
What you wear can hugely influence how you feel about yourself.
Plus-size women are given a whole rulebook about what we should and should not wear. No crop tops, nothing too tight, and only dark colors that are slimming.
We think that’s stupid. You should wear whatever you feel most comfortable in.
Some curvier gals might feel most comfortable in loose-fitting clothing, and you know what? That’s okay. These days, you can find all sorts of cute outfits that obscure your trouble spots but don’t look like you’re wearing a potato sack.
If you want to wear tighter clothes that maybe even show some skin, you can do that in a way that’s attractive and flattering.
When you feel good about what you’re wearing, you have to feel good about your body too. After all, without your body to fill the clothes, a shirt or skirt is just a lifeless piece of fabric. You bring the outfit to life, so give yourself some kudos!
10. Fake It Until You Make It
If your body hatred has some very deep roots, it can seem impossible to change your mindset and eventually become comfortable with your body.
Although you’ll have more of an uphill battle, you can indeed rewire your internal monologue. Just sometimes, it takes faking it.
You might look at yourself naked in the mirror and not like what you see. You could struggle to pick out things about yourself that you do like. You may second-guess every new style you try, so you go back to your old standards.
Pretending you’re comfortable in your body in these kinds of situations will eventually make you feel comfortable. The transition will just happen, often unbeknownst to you, until one day when you’re getting ready and you realize that hey, you really do love how you look in that dress.
Conclusion
Every woman deserves to feel comfortable in her own body. The journey to get there can sometimes be a difficult one, so remember to have lots of love and patience for yourself!
