I think it’s really important to understand that moving forward with feeling better about your body isn’t a straight line and that you will have times where you are going to feel awesome and times where you will feel bad about yourself.

This is totally normal. It’s bad enough to feel bad, but you don’t want to beat yourself up about having bad feelings on top of it. That’s not a fun place.

So here’s what I have found helpful- First, understand that you are not your thoughts. Which seems like a weird thing to say, I know, but what I mean is, you can have thoughts that don’t mean anything.

Like, if I find myself thinking, “I could hit that guy with a snowball”, but I don’t do anything about it… I don’t bend over and get the snow and I don’t throw it at anyone- then it’s just a weird thing that sort of ran thru my brain randomly.

But if I spend a lot of time with the thought- God, why I did I think about snowballs, and what does that say about me as a person, etc- then, I’m like, attaching myself to this thought and making it bigger than it has to be.

So, say you notice yourself thinking- “I am gross”. See if you can try so say to yourself- “I don’t really think that”. Not, Oh I shouldn’t have this thought, but more, “yeah- I get it, brain”. We’ve been programmed to think this body is gross, so that’s a thing that’s going to happen sometimes.

And then you sort of, detach it from yourself, like- yeah, that’s a thing that happens sometimes, and see if you can turn your attention somewhere else.

B/c otherwise, it’s like telling yourself not to imagine a pink elephant. The more you say to yourself- stop thinking about elephants- the more elephants are going to pop up in your mind.

Brains are weird.

Anyway, give yourself space to be ok with the fact that you are going to feel bad sometimes, which is completely to be expected b/c we are swimming in a sea of cultural messages that demand that we see ourselves in this negative way, and learning to not do that can take a lot of time.

I would also suggest some counter-programming for your brain- basically look at as many positive photos of fat people as you can.

Take a look at Adipositivity and there are a lot of great Tumblrs with photos of fat people. Seeing other fat people looking gorgeous and happy can help start to undo some of that negative cultural messaging.