Body Acceptance and Self-Love: Nurturing Positive Body Image in Binge Eating Recovery
Body acceptance is actually a controversial topic. When you are in binge eating recovery in San Diego, NYC, and London (UK) and are working on nurturing a positive body image, it’s important to unpack the notion of body acceptance before diving into it. It is a complex, challenging focus that deserves attention.
What is body acceptance?
Body acceptance is being able to look at your body with care. Instead of self-hate, create a well of self-love inside you so that you are able to nurture positive body image, even when you are in binge eating recovery.
Whether you’re in California or New York, you are able to move toward a place at which no matter what your body looks like, you can accept it because it stems from a place of self-love. Cultivating self-love is a process. It often takes experiencing nonjudgmental, unconditional love from other people so that you can feel love for yourself.
Body acceptance can be controversial. Some folks believe that when you are struggling with binge eating disorder, body acceptance may be too much of a stretch for you. That’s where body neutrality can come in.
What is body neutrality?
Body neutrality is when you neither love nor hate your body. You simply feel neutral about it. It feels a little more achievable because many of you may be coming from a place of body dislike or even body hate. Body acceptance and body love feel too out of reach.
With body acceptance, you can use the dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skill of radical acceptance. That means that whatever your body looks like, and even if changes happen in your body, you mostly feel neutral about it. It is neither good nor bad. It simply is.
What is body grief?
I learned about body grief from @bodyimagewithbri (IG) Bri Campos, who is a body image coach. Bri acknowledges that it’s difficult to have a large or fat body in our thin-obsessed world. Bri maintains that going through a grief process is necessary to get out of body hate. I encourage you to check out her Instagram page in order to learn more about body grief and whether it’s a process that will work for you.
How to nurture positive body image in binge eating recovery
Binge eating recovery is not for the faint of heart. Neither is nurturing positive body image. It’s about taking an honest look at how you feel about your body and intentionally changing it. It’s hard. I get it. I’ve been there. I also know that it’s possible to transform the way that you view your body. It takes time, and it takes support. It’s about seeing your relationship with your body as just that…a relationship, and doing things that will improve that relationship.
Meditation can help. Prayer can help. Mindfulness can help. So can distraction when you become overly focused on your body.
Being thankful for what your body can do can be helpful; however, when you struggle with chronic pain, illness, or injury, it may be a struggle. I think that having an appreciation that your body is alive is all we can ask for sometimes.
Regardless, cultivating self-love when you nurture positive body image is key. Remember: You are more than your body. Your mind, personality, spirit, emotions, everything—they all make up who you are. And that’s what is worth appreciating.
Nurturing Positive Body Image in Binge Eating Recovery in California and London (UK) in My Programs
💚 Take the first step toward binge eating recovery in DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM*, which combines a comprehensive online binge eating class with a private, hidden Facebook group where you can get support. It’s an online course for high performers who aim to transform their relationships with food. Anyone in the U.S. or internationally can join.
💚 Sign up for the ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD**. It’s a 3-month, 1:1 online binge-eating coaching + an online class for professionals, students, athletes, and all-around high achievers who just want to gain balance and control of food. You can work with me from any state in the U.S., as well as anywhere else internationally.
Catch Marianne Miller, Eating Disorder Therapist, and Binge Eating Coach on Social Media
💚 Watch my Instagram LIVES on Thursdays from 12-1p PST (3-4p EST, 8-9p GMT) . I have conversations with professionals such as eating disorder dietitians and therapists on many topics, such as binge eating, BED, bulimia, body image, etc. Subscribe to my Instagram @drmariannemiller, and you’ll get bulimia and BED info sent to your phone with my reels, posts, etc.
Disclaimers for Body Image, Binge Eating, and My Virtual Online Binge Eating Program
*DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM is online binge-eating education and private virtual group support via a Facebook Group. The aim of this course is to help people reduce and eliminate any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.
**The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is virtual binge eating education and LIVE virtual coaching support. The goal of this program is to help people stop any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.