No matter how much you take care of yourself, it can sometimes be relatively fruitless in terms of emotional satisfaction unless you give yourself the respect you are due. It’s not uncommon to see those with great frames looking in the mirror unsatisfied because they feel they’re not good enough. Then again, it’s better to feel that way than to not work out and feel the same emotion.
But should this be an either/or choice?
The truth is that fitness should also coincide with your ability to cultivate a positive self-image. A great adage is to compare yourself to the person you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. If you move from 110kg to 105kg in the space of five weeks, that’s amazing progress, and while you may still be overweight you’ll be gradually appreciating yourself and loving your new body.
How else can we cultivate our self-image with accuracy, love and care? After all, this is not a one-night solution, but something we must carry with us throughout life. With the following advice, that process will be a little easier:
Self-Care & Grooming
It’s essential to ensure you are well-groomed and take care of yourself. But there’s no reason why you can’t use healthy measures to help you get there. For instance, someone might prefer to use laser hair removal services rather than having to overly cater to their waxing methods in order to achieve the perfect mirror image. Additionally, ensuring that you eat correctly, even when losing weight, to avoid overdoing or undergoing your goal-setting can help you avoid falling into a nutritional health hazard.
Healthy Goals
It’s important to curate healthy goals and make sure you’re staying on top of that which is realistic. Never feel like you need to overdo a run, or lift too much, or lose so much weight, or take drastic measures to rid yourself of excess skin. Keep your goals sane, healthy and realistic. If you can do this, then you’ll be able to properly develop a measured, consistent approach, and you will never chastise yourself if you fail to go ‘fast enough’. This way, incremental progress becomes something to celebrate, instead of only caring for the most notable of developments.
Measure Your Progress
If you measure your progress carefully, you will often notice that the little achievements you make are more notable. For instance, if you managed to add an extra 0.2 of a mile onto your morning run, even accidentally, that’s something to celebrate. Maybe you’ve 100 calories under your goal for the day, yet you feel fully satiated and have met all of your nutritional macros. That’s a win. Perhaps you are simply starting to smile in the mirror more prominently. That in itself can leave you happy to continue. Don’t take these moments for granted. They can mean absolutely everything.
With this advice, we hope you can understand that fitness is nothing without a healthy self-image.
