Bad Body Days

3 minute read | I had a bad body day this weekend. I'd like to tell you I didn't get lost in it, but I did which allowed me to process these thoughts.

Jul 16, 2024

I had a bad body day this weekend.

That one bad day has spiraled into a lingering doubt—the kind that makes me double-take my reflection in the window and pinch the sides of my stomach, attempting to measure without measuring if things have changed.

But what's worse is the guilt for having a bad body day at all. It's one thing to feel emotional about your body. It's another to stack another emotion on top of the existing one, creating a double-whammy effect (definitely not scientific jargon).

Often, it happens before I am even aware of it.

I feel bad about my body, and then I feel bad for feeling bad about my body.

But this time, as I felt bad about my body, I had some thoughts, and I felt like those thoughts were worth sharing.

First, bad body days are human.

It might even be part of your DNA.

I was doing some research on when diet culture first began. Honestly, I was surprised to find that a word similar to our English word 'dieting' existed in Ancient Greece. Although some believe it carried a more holistic approach than we understand today, it still proves, on some level, that our fascination with the body is as old as humanity.

I don't say bad body days are human to justify or enable them to continue but to remind you that you're not alone. We all have bad body days.

Second, bad body days don't magically disappear.

Hopefully, you can lessen their appearance and move through them more quickly, but it's unrealistic to assume that bad body days are gone forever.

Unfortunately, this false understanding—the idea that healing makes you free from whatever you deal with—shapes us more than we know.

The truth is that healing isn't about forgetting, like health isn't about arriving.

Healing is about developing tools to deal with things.

As I always say, it's about rebalancing what life pulls out of balance. It's moving through the dysregulation. It's really about growth. In some capacity, life will always pull you out of balance, which means you'll always have an occasional bad (body) day, but health means you don't have to stay that way.

You will deal with dysregulation.

You will get triggered.

And you will have bad body days.

The question is, what will you do with them?

My approach may seem basic, even repetitive, based on everything I've told you before, but hear me out. If you find yourself in a bad body spiral, this might be the thing to help you pull yourself out.

My Mundane Approach To Overcome Bad Body Days

01. Acknowledge that it's normal to have bad body days.

Again, body image issues don't discriminate. They're part of your DNA and happen in everyone, no matter what ethnicity or gender you are.

You are going to have bad body days. But just because it's normal doesn't mean it's healthy.

The key is not to try to achieve a life free of them but to develop the tools to move through them. One of life's greatest tasks should be transforming what is normal into what is healthy.

Note: It's okay to have bad days, but that doesn't mean you must (or should) stay that way.

02. Acknowledge your feelings are not fact.

It's easy to process what you feel into what you believe. But this is a slippery slope you must be aware of. You cannot believe what you feel because your feelings are not facts.

You may feel fat, but that doesn't mean you are fat.

Distinguishing the two is important because it helps you see how fleeting and transformative feelings can be. Feelings are like opinions. You can change how you feel.

Acknowledge what you feel and then do something to change it.

03. Do something that makes you feel good.

Every action is a choice. It may not feel that way because much of what you do is subconscious. But subconscious actions are built out of a choice, repeated over time to create a pattern.

Like all patterns, what can be patterned can be re-patterned.

Work to negate the bad feelings and spiral that have become a pattern by doing something that makes you feel good. It's not necessarily a bullseye approach to eliminating bad feelings, but you can alter the emotional thermostat, moving it from the negative into the positive by taking healthy action.

Wear something you feel good about. Speak positive words over yourself. Nurture your body in a way that says, 'I see you.'
Care for your body.

04. Go back to truth.

You might not be able to change how you feel, at least not instantly (thus why you will occasionally have bad body days), but you can alter your feelings by learning how to filter your emotions.

Your emotions are always looking to be filtered. It's part of what makes you feel safe.

Emotions are filtered through your beliefs - or your observing brain. But this requires you to analyze your beliefs outside your bad body days.

What do you believe about your body? Be honest, because this might be the reason bad body days are overwhelming.

05. Divert your attention away from yourself (AHEM, MOVE ON).

It might be hard to hear, but it's important. Sometimes, the best thing you can do to get through a bad body day is to move on.

Stop thinking so much about yourself.

I'm not encouraging you to diminish or neglect yourself but to remind you that life is bigger than you, and it's more fulfilling when you get outside of yourself.

The most confident thing you can do is acknowledge your hard day, remind yourself it doesn't have to stay that way and move on with life.

Don't let the bad body day win.

And certainly don't let it steal the joy of living.

You're going to have bad body days. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be to overcome those days because you won't be adding guilt to your already bad feelings.

I don't want to say accept it, as in letting it happen. Part of life is working to change your view of yourself, but don't give it too much time.

It's going to happen. Know that and then move on with life.

I’d love to know, how do you overcome bad body days?