Love Your Body Forward: Why Positive Body Image Is Key to Lasting Health

Introduction

Are you tired of approaching your health journey from a place of frustration, blame, and self-criticism? In this eye-opening episode of Fit and Fabulous, Dr. Orlena reveals why your relationship with your body might be the hidden obstacle to achieving lasting health results.

Discover the powerful difference between "negative brain" and "positive brain" approaches to health, and why appreciation rather than criticism creates sustainable motivation. Learn why focusing on your body's incredible capabilities—instead of just its appearance—can revolutionize your wellness journey. Most importantly, understand how to take responsibility for your health without carrying the unnecessary weight of self-blame for past choices.

Whether you're over 40 and navigating hormonal changes or simply seeking a more joyful approach to health, this episode offers a refreshing perspective that could transform not just how you see your body, but how you care for it. Listen now and take the first step toward loving your body forward to its healthiest, most vibrant state.

Transcription 

Body image podcast
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena . I hope that you are feeling amazing today. Today I want to talk about body image and why it is so important that you have a good body image. But just before we start talking about body image. Exciting announcement. I have created a free community called the Positively Healthy Community.

Now, before you go, is this just another Facebook group? The answer is no. It is not another Facebook group. It is a community within my website. It is a free community. It is for you if you are somebody over 40 who is looking to get more healthy, to have more energy, to get rid of that little excess wobble that you might have.

And you want some support, some free resources. At the moment, the free resources are my stop dieting and start Thriving Video. [00:01:00] Plus, there is a video that dives deep into ending emotional eating with a handout to go with that. Plus, obviously, a community. Now it's early days of the community, so we need to grow the community.

So come and join the free community, which is really gonna help support you in your transformation. It's totally free. I'll leave a link in the show loads, and I look forward to getting to know you and helping you see your transformation. Okay, why do I want to talk about body image? Yesterday I had a coaching call with some of my clients and we were talking about body image, and this is how the conversation went.

I don't like my body, they said, because I am overweight and I don't want to be overweight. And when I look at my body. I don't like it. I see this extra weight that I'm holding around the middle and I just don't like it. Now if we dive a little bit further, there's a current of [00:02:00] blame there as well. This is my fault and it's my fault that I haven't done the things that I need to do, and this is what I'm focusing on.

I look at this and I blame myself, and it has an impact on my confidence and really. We dive deep, it affects what I'm doing moving forward. So it has an impact on my confidence in that I compare myself to other people, perhaps people who are younger and slimmer, or even this person, ideal person in my brain that I don't measure up to.

And this opens up so many rabbit holes of things that we can talk about. So let's unpick this a little bit. And work out how we can change this and why it's important to change this. If you want to have lasting results, why this is holding you back. [00:03:00] So blame. Let's talk about blame, and is this your fault that you have extra weight?

The thing about holding onto blame is this. If I give you a story, a bowl was broken in my kitchen and I have four children and one of them has broken the bowl like it could have been me, it could have been my husband, but I know it's not me, and my husband would just say, yeah, I broke the bowl. Now the bowl is broken and I can spend my time and effort trying to figure out who broke the bowl because I want to tell them off and because I want to say that's a bad thing.

Perhaps I want some closure in form of an apology or something like that. But here's the bottom line. That is not gonna fix the bowl. The bowl is broken. Really, I'm much better off accepting that the bowl is broken. Working through that emotion and thinking about how I can prevent that from [00:04:00] happening again in the future.

Now you might say if you found out how, who did it and how it happened, that's gonna help you in the future. Yes, that's fine, but that is a different. Way of trying to find out what happened as opposed to, I want to find out who did it so I can tell them off. And so they know that they have been told off.

So blame is not helpful. Now, blame is slightly different from responsibility. Whose responsibility is it to get you to healthy? Amazing. You. Now you can look at positivity, you can look at responsibility in a positive light. As in I want to make these amazing changes. We'll go into this a little bit more, but the bottom line is if you are there blaming yourself and saying, I don't like my body, and really focusing on all the bits that you don't like about your body, what you are essentially doing is [00:05:00] being in negative brain.

As opposed to being in positive brain. Now it's very easy to think, yeah, but negative brain gets me there. Negative brain is about push, push. It's about depriving myself. It's about saying, I can't do this. It's about making myself move forwards. But the analogy is this. Imagine that you are teaching a child to ride a bike.

A negative brain looks like this. Oh my goodness, you're so awful. How come you don't already know how to do this? You are hopeless at doing this. How is that going to encourage your child to ride a bike as opposed to, isn't it gonna be great when you can ride a bike? You can do this. I have every confidence in you.

Look, you are already balancing really well. Look, you can push off. All you need to do is just keep going. Just keep going. And you may fall over or wobble a few times, but you're gonna get there. You really are gonna get there. It. That is the difference between negative brain and positive brain, and I put it to you, which is going to be [00:06:00] more effective, which is going to get results quicker.

The answer is positive brain, and yet we like to stay in negative brain because we think it gets us results and it may get us results, but positive brain will get you more consistent results and it will also get you there more quickly and in a more pleasant and enjoyable way. It's just we don't see it.

So this is the problem with negative brain is that you are looking at the bad things and saying, it is bad. I don't like it. And as we were talking about this, one of my clients really opened up and said, yeah, you know what? I can see that I, when I'm eating food and looking at food, I'm doing it from a place of negative brain.

Punishing myself as opposed to, yeah, let's do this from a place of love and kindness. I love my body so much that. I want to get it to its healthiest, most vibrant place. I want to get it to where it is [00:07:00] strong and fit and healthy, and as I eat, I do that from a place of excitement to get it there. And I also put it to you that you don't have to deprive yourself of all of these things and that you can enjoy what you eat and create healthy food that is tasty, that is going to help you achieve your goals.

That is positive brain. I enjoy eating healthily. I enjoy nourishing my body. I enjoy fueling my body. I personally enjoy eating. And it's not about depriving yourself. I eat lots of food. I enjoy what I eat. I do eat healthy food. 99% of the time. I do eat some treats and processed food, but I choose not to.

I don't really want to eat that stuff because I know what it's doing to my body and a little bit of it's okay, but I don't want to be doing that all the time. So that is the difference between positive and negative brain. Now. Is it your fault that you haven't made changes already? And the [00:08:00] way to look at this is really to have empathy for yourself and think it's easy for me to have empathy for somebody else when I see somebody else in this situation.

I don't spend my time thinking it's all your fault that you are in that situation. I personally, as a coach, don't. Think that about my clients. I don't go around thinking it's all your fault. I think society is the way society is, and society is basically, the way society is set up means that the vast majority of people are going to put on weight, particularly as they hit those hormonal changes in their forties, fifties, and most people doing normal life.

Are going to put on weight. Now, obviously there are some exceptions to that. People who have either been lucky or intentional in what they do, and some people sail through that without putting on weight, but the vast majority of people are. So it's easy to have empathy for somebody else [00:09:00] and go, yeah, like it's okay.

It's fine. It's just one of those things. Having empathy for yourself is more difficult, but I put it to you that you have done the best that you could do with the tools that you have. At every moment in time, you may look back and think you made a bad decision there, but you made the best decision that you could make, and we are not perfect.

Nobody is perfect. I'm not perfect and I teach this stuff. I was saying to my clients the other day I got really cross with my daughter at the weekend, and I shouted at her. I'm somebody who teaches positive wellbeing. That's not positive wellbeing, but I'm human. And you are human and we do the best we can.

Yes, sometimes it's not perfect. But just accept it and move on. That's what Positive Brain does and learns from that experience. Yeah, what can I learn from that? What can I change about how I show up so that doesn't happen again? [00:10:00] So instead of beating yourself up and blaming yourself for where you are now, you are much better off saying, okay, I'm gonna take responsibility for this.

And what does that look like? It means stepping into positive brain and thinking what is possible for me? Okay, this is what I want to do. I want to lose 12 pounds. I want to lose four stone. Whatever it is that you want to lose. I want to do this because I want to be healthy and I want to be vibrant, and I want to enjoy the rest of life that I have, and I want to enjoy that life in my most healthy way as opposed to.

Getting unwell and, gradually getting worse and worse. I want a vibrant rest of life, and I am going to make that happen. Forget about what happened in the past. I can make changes now and I can make ch positive, sustainable changes, but in order to do that, I need to make this a priority.

It's not gonna happen if [00:11:00] I just carry on doing the same kind of thing. So I hope that helps you see why body image and how you think of your body is really important. Now, how can you change how you think about your body? Instead of focusing on all the bits that we don't like, we all have bits on our body that we don't like.

Accept them. This is where it is, this is how my body is, and focus on all the amazing things that your body does. My body is totally amazing. My kidneys do this stuff where they, I don't know, they regulate my blood pressure and how much fluid I have. I don't even have to think about it, and also like I've got these amazing lungs and they do this oxygen exchange thing, and I don't have to think about it.

My heart does this beating all the time. I never have to think about it. My body is amazing and my body helps me do things like writing and talking and cooking. And swimming and cycling and all the things that I love [00:12:00] doing. My body is amazing and so is yours, and really get to appreciate how absolutely amazing your body is.

So I. If you are somebody who feels, yep, I don't like this about my body, here is your homework. I want you to spend five minutes a day for the next week, just journaling on all the amazing things that your body does, and really start to show some appreciation for the amazing stuff that your body does.

And if you can get to that place of, I totally love my body, it's a much easier step to be motivated to get to healthy, amazing you. Because I love my body so much. I want it to be strong and healthy, and all of those other places, steps just fall into place. Now I. If you are there thinking, okay, I get it. I prioritize my health and wellness, I need to make some changes.

I'm not sure what I want to do, then I [00:13:00] invite you to book a call if you are ready to make changes and you want some support, and it is about making it easy, sustainable, enjoyable. Really paying attention to this mindset piece because I put it to you that you can go and get a different diet, a different way of eating that is not gonna work by itself.

You have to do some of the mindset work too. And the best, most sustainable way of making Healthy Living Stick is to make those changes and pay attention to mindset. And this is part of the mindset work. So if you are interested, feel free to book a call. Totally free and no obligation to join any of my programs.

I have different programs for different budgets. Book a call. I would love to chat to you. Have a fabulous day. Goodbye.