I know a lot of my readers are 20 somethings. I also know that a lot of my readers are in their 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s. And while I write a lot about premenopausal women’s health, I also want to write a lot more (as I learn more!) about menopausal and postmenopausal women’s health because that’s so so important too. I’m going to be writing about dealing with body changes in your 20s, but I think this applies to any life stage. I know there are a lot of body changes as women go through menopause as well.
The thing that makes accepting and even tolerating body changes really hard is societal messaging that says, “If your body gets bigger, something is wrong.” Somebody could be suffering from depression or trauma or a devastating loss, but if they look thinner…people will comment on how great they look. As a culture, we applaud weight loss. But the moment we notice somebody’s body has gotten bigger and not smaller, or we notice our own body has gotten bigger and not smaller…we assume something is wrong. That there must be something to fix.
Bodies aren’t meant to stay that same. That would be weird. As we move through different life stages, our hormones shift, our body’s need for varying levels of body fat changes and so our body shape and size changes. I’m not sure if there is any research behind this…but in my own practice I find a lot of my client’s eating disorders or disordered eating habits or body image issues started in their late teens and early twenties. I think this life stage is really hard for a lot of women. In high school and college I wanted everyone to like me. I was really unsure of who I was and above all else, I desired acceptance and praise. I wanted to be good at things and the last thing I wanted was to be forgotten or average. I had no idea what my values were….at that point I valued frat parties, forever 21 and cheap vodka. I had no idea who I was so my value and worth was heavily contingent on the crowd I ran with, who liked me and what I looked like compared to other girls. Leaving college and entering into living on my own and navigating adult life was hard too. It was uncertain and messy and included a lot of starting over. New city, new job, new friendships, new everything. I didn’t know how to pay a bill or shop for a week’s worth of groceries when I graduated college.
I think all the uncertainly and instability in your early 20s makes you really vulnerable to negative thoughts around your body. As a 20 something I was highly impressionable, naive and insecure. Outwardly, I may have appeared confident, but I was anything but on the inside. My way of feeling confident was through micromanaging my body size, being successful in school, eating healthy and being a fast runner. It was all external. And what all these external validators make for is really shaky ground. Since a lot of my value and worth was contingent on my body size, when that changed so did my value and worth.
In order to keep your body size the same throughout your late teens and twenties (and your life) it usually takes a lot of hard work, stress and rules. I realize not for everyone. For a small percentage of the population, their natural body size is small and doesn’t change much during these years. But that is a VERY VERY small percentage. That is not the norm. What many women experience are body changes. Often your hormones are a little more all over the place in your teenage years and your period might be also. Not for all women of course, but for many. As you enter into your twenties your hormones begin to settle in more (if you’re taking care of yourself with good nutrition, appropriate exercise, enough sleep and self care to manage stress) and your period likely becomes more regular.
We also experience body fat distribution in our 20s. We’re settling into our adult bodies and are no long pubertal teenagers. I remember when I was in my early 20s I hated body fat. Now that I’m nearing the end of my twenties, I can’t think of anything more womanly than body fat. But in a culture that sees fat as bad, it can be really hard to tolerate and accept more body fat. Fat isn’t valued in the culture that we live in, so I don’t think I’ll ever look at the fat on my stomach and go, “I love this!” But I do think I can tolerate and accept my body fat and move on with my life so I can focus on living out my values. The picture I illustrate for clients that they find helpful is having them imagine a child cuddled up on a mothers lap. Then I ask them to describe the mom they are envisioning. Never have I had a client describe the mom as a woman with little to no body fat, toned triceps and a flat, taught stomach. No, they describe a mom who is fleshy, healthy and has body fat.
Tolerating body changes during your early 20s (and your mid and late 20s) is hard enough, let alone accepting all these body changes. It can feel out of control and can trigger unhealthy behaviors in order to “fix” what is changing. But remember, your job is to care for your body. Your body’s job is to manage it’s size. Your body is the master at managing it’s size and shape. Your mind is not. If I knew at 24 what I know now and was in the same headspace, my early 20s would have involved a lot less thoughts around food and exercise and maintaining a weight that was too low for my body to menstruate and a weight that was destined to change.
Some things that I think are helpful when it comes being a caregiver for your body so you can tolerate, and perhaps come to accept your changing body and natural body size.
Stop body checking.
This is much easier said then done. Just because you want to stop body checking and plan to, doesn’t mean you won’t ever body check again. But having the intention to stop body checking can make you aware of when you are doing it. So when you do find yourself body checking, you can notice that and then choose to not do that. Choose to turn your head away from the window you’re walking by. Choose to not look in the mirror when you get out of the shower. And choose to set up your mat in the middle of the yoga room so you’re not practicing in front of the mirror. It makes me so sad when I see women at the gym or in the locker room body checking. Sad because it’s so normal and sad because I feel her pain.
Throw out old clothes that don’t fit.
Holding onto old clothes that you hope to fit into one day does nothing for your mental, emotional or physical health. Unless you’re pregnant, donate old clothes that do not fit right now. I remember holding onto this one pair of shorts I wore in college in my early twenties and then I would try them on to see if they were less tight and every time I tried to squeeze myself into these shorts I felt like complete crap. Stop doing that to yourself. Buying clothes that fit can do wonders for your body image and how you feel in your body.
Write out positive affirmations.
You have to rewire all the brain pathways that are drowning in diet culture. Positive affirmations are short phrases you can memorize and say to yourself when your healthy, wise voice is weak and being shouted over by your unhealthy voice. The key is repetition. Literally, repeat repeat repeat. These can especially be helpful when it comes to decreasing anxiety. When it comes to tolerating body changes, anxiety is your bff. When you feel anxiety coming on, press into it and learn to understand the anxiety. Working through it, not avoiding it, is how we make uncomfortable changes in our lives. Some come up with 5-10 positive affirmations to start and write them on stickies to post in noticeable places or on the lockscreen of your phone. These affirmations provide you with go-to healthy, wise thoughts when your brain is filled with crap.
Do movement that connects instead of dissociates you from your body.
Finding movement that connects you to your body will be different for everyone. Running helps connect me to my body. Yoga really helps me connect to my body. And Barre3 and pilates also help me connect to my body. Some days though, I know running isn’t going to help me connect to my body and what would feel best is yoga. You have to figure out you. But I will say, mindless cardio on machines at the gym pretty much never helped me connect to my body. And multiple HIIT workouts a week never did either. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a more intense form of movement here and there…I still do, but I had to take a break from it for a long time to connect back to my body. I don’t do intense forms of exercise (think not being able to talk in full sentences) that often now, because I learned that when I do, I start to think about changing my body more than caring for my body. It’s also important to note that if you feel like you have an exercise obsession, taking a complete break from ALL movement is key to your recovery.
Get off the scale.
I think learning to see a number on the scale as completely neutral and holding no value can be really helpful down the road in your journey towards food and body peace. But learning to tolerate the distress of seeing that number should probably be worked through with someone skilled in that area…like a therapist or dietitian. But in the beginning, getting off the scale I think is so important. If your day goes from good to bad by a few numbers on a scale, that’s a problem. You wouldn’t stay friends with someone who made you feel like crap, so stop staying in a relationship with the scale when it makes you feel like crap. You don’t have to keep bullying yourself.
Explore what you are actually feeling when you say “I feel fat” or “I feel gross”.
Fat and gross are adjectives, not feelings. When we say we feel fat we aren’t feeling fat, but we are feeing other things that we can’t identify so we say we feel fat. So do some exploring. What do you feel? Maybe you feel frustrated or fearful. Maybe you feel anxious and unworthy. Maybe you feel tired or insecure. What are you really feeling?
If you continue to struggle even though you’ve been trying on your own for a while, I’d encourage you to do a few things. You can check out my online course on cultivating healthy body image and see if that resonates with you – I include many tools for you to process through your own body image struggles and develop healthy ways to care for yourself. Or I’d encourage you to work with a dietitian and/or therapist skilled in this area. That could be us at Real Life Women’s Health or one of many incredible RD and therapist colleagues of mine that I am happy to refer you to. Above all, know that you can get support and you deserve support so that you don’t have to deal with this junk for the rest of your 20s or 30s and years to come. Your life has value and purpose that has nothing to do with food or your body.
Robyn, such a great post! Great analogy about the child on a mother’s lap. I always find myself body-checking or having those “I feel fat/gross” moments. It’s definitely a work in progress (easier said than done) but it’s so so important for our health and happiness in the long term.
I had a question, could shortness of breath be a symptom of amenorrhea/the recovery process, even when its near the “end” of a recovery process? (say from a past of under-eating or over-exercising)
Thank you for highlighting the importance of letting go and really connecting with yourself. Your posts always help me take things into perspective and reflect (I just read your behind the scenes of intuitive eating post and it was AMAZING, super helpful!)
Hi A! Since I know nothing about your personal history and true shortness of breath is not a symptom to be taken lightly I’d check with your doctor.
So glad you found that post helpful – I’ll do one again soon 🙂
Such an amazing post! I’m about to turn 25 and can totally relate to most of the stuff you talked about in this post. Love all the tips you gave here. I can definitely admit I need to go through my clothes and throw some of my smaller pieces away. Happy you included body checking in here, as that is something else I find myself doing which I hate.
Wearing clothes that you feel good is in huge! Stopping the body checking and taking the focus off your body can be so helpful during the tolerating stage and then you can reintroduce mirrors etc as you learn to accept your body.
I developed disordering eating at the age of 17 and full blown anorexia at 25. My body never had a chance to naturally change in my 20s. Now that I’m 36 (as of today!) I have noticed recently that my body is unexpectedly and suddenly larger and more curvy. I am finally eating more intuitively and not obsessively exercising. I feel like I am experiencing the changes you wrote about at a late age because of what my body was going through in my 20s. I am finally starting to settle into this new body, but it hasn’t been easy. I think if we all had the expectation that our bodies were meant to change, we would feel more at ease when they do.
Happy birthday! 😊
thank you for sharing Christine – I know many woman can relate to your story and experiencing those changes later on!
So so much wisdom here!!! I LOVE what you said about how our job is not to micromanage our body size. And how we can just move on and live out our values instead of obsessing over our bodies! So much freedom in that!!
“I don’t think I’ll ever look at the fat on my stomach and go, “I love this!” But I do think I can tolerate and accept my body fat and move on with my life so I can focus on living out my values.”
I had to laugh at this because this is where I am. I struggle with it sometimes, but now that I’m in my late 30s, I’m working on accepting that my body is changing and will change. That’s what bodies do! I admit that as I approach 40, I’m getting nervous because I’ve heard several people lamenting about how your metabolism slows down so much and “everything changes” once you hit that milestone. But I know that message is part of diet culture, and I’m trying to focus on caring for the body I have right now. Thanks for the encouraging words, Robyn!
I think that is our culture and the diet industry preying on women’s vulnerabilities as they approach “middle age” – it’s all fear mongering so you focus on caring for yourself 🙂
Love this! I’ve employed the majority of these tactics and they really help!!!! I think I first started obsessively body-checking when I got rid of my scale. What I didn’t realize at the time was that while the scale was gone, my mindset of defining self worth by my size hadn’t and body-checking was just a proxy for the scale. I’m not sure I even realized I body checked (or knew that was a word!) until I started reading your and immaeathat’s blogs! But thanks to you guys I gained awareness of body checking, then I forced myself to say one thing positive about my body every time I body checked, and now I rarely body check.
Thank you for sharing how much has shifted with body checking!!
Hi Robyn,
Long time reader, first time commenter 🙂 I love this perspective – thanks for posting!
I do have a question that is probably just tangentially related…but this post got me thinking about certain nutritional recommendations re: gaining weight. For example, most nutrition articles I read wax rhapsodic about nuts as nutritional powerhouses – but always with the caveat that you should only eat “a handful” a day to prevent weight gain.
Nuts were actually a big fear food for me in my eating disorder. Now, I eat them regularly and at snack time, often find myself craving them for both satiety + taste, but I always find myself paranoid about eating “too much.” I feel like I’m at my set point and not necessarily worried about going ‘overboard’ on nuts but I’m wondering…is this advice more relevant when you’re actively restricting and ANY deviation from a very strict diet will result in weight gain? In the future, I would be very interested to see your perspective on conventional serving sizes/nutritional recommendations in an intuitive eating mindset vs. a more restrictive mindset, and what the realistic impact of these portion sizes is when you’re around your set point range, especially with foods that are nutritionally and calorically dense like nuts/nut butters.
Also just wanted to thank you for this blog! It’s been a huge source of help and credible information for me on my journey 🙂 Keep up the great, truly impactful work!
I would probably recommend not reading articles that talk about making sure you “dont gain weight’ because that’s diet culture and it’s fear mongering. Serving sizes mean nothing – your body is the expert. All servings sizes tell me is that a 100 calorie serving of cereal is going to leave me hungry. I think this would be a good post idea I’ll write down! So glad the blog has been helpful 🙂
This is so good! “Fat and gross are adjectives, not feelings.” I’d never actually thought about that but so true! Going to hang on to that line! Love this post. Thanks, Robyn!
glad it was helpful for you!!
STOP BODY CHECKING.
This is much easier said then done. Just because you want to stop body checking and plan to, doesn’t mean you won’t ever body check again. But having the intention to stop body checking can make you aware of when you are doing it. So when you do find yourself body checking, you can notice that and then choose to not do that. Choose to turn your head away from the window you’re walking by. Choose to not look in the mirror when you get out of the shower. And choose to set up your mat in the middle of the yoga room so you’re not practicing in front of the mirror. It makes me so sad when I see women at the gym or in the locker room body checking. Sad because it’s so normal and sad because I feel her pain.
I love this post Robyn. However… I do disagree with this one. If someone needs to do this *for a time* I think that’s OK.But, we need to learn to look at ourselves and accept and appreciate what we see. Challenge yourself to look in that mirror and smile and say “I love my body.” It’s not always easy – but it can really shift things. We shouldn’t be turning our heads away from ourselves. I love practicing my yoga in front of the mirror because I do very hard… difficult… positive affirmations and catch myself body shaming and then do an affirmation to counter it. Mirrors and windows shouldn’t be the enemy. It’s not criticize the body – but to learn to accept and love it in all conditions.
Hi Ashley! I couldn’t agree more with you about being about to see our bodies as neutral and accept our natural body size. I think it’s too high of an expectation for some people to love their bodies so working towards neutrality and acceptance is a huge win. I think the same thing goes for weight – learning to see a number on the scale if you happen to get weighed at the doctor etc and seeing it as neutral as your cell phone number. It’s simply a number. With that said, when someone is beginning a journey of body acceptance, often they can be in too vulnerable of a spot to be able to tolerate that distress and not engage in unhealthy behaviors to change their body. Down the road they begin the work of exposure therapy to challenge those thoughts/beliefs around their body. OF COURSE everyone’s journey is different, but if someone isn’t able to tolerate the distress of looking at their body and not actively trying to change it in the beginning, that is 100% okay and that doesn’t mean they are going about their healing process wrong. Also most importantly, body checking is very different than being able to look at yourself in the mirror. I hope that helps! Thanks for commenting, reading and sharing <3
Thanks for replying! I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on looking in the mirror and body checking. I understand where you are coming from… I would just hope it’s for a short time in the beginning. When I started my eating disorder recovery, I was working with someone and they had me look in the mirror and tell myself ” I love you.” It was one of the hardest things I had every done but it was a turning point for me. For me, I faked it until I made it and forced myself to become best friends with my mirror no matter how difficult it was for me. I practiced affirmations for what seemed like hours at a time – all while looking in the mirror. This may be too intense for some people.
I get SO sad when I’m around anyone – male or female – and they look at themselves in the mirror with disgust and make negative comments. At some point, we need to be able to look in the mirror and speak positively and see beauty in every condition. It’s there somewhere. Hope that makes sense… 🙂
The mirror and the scale are definitely not best friends when it comes to accepting your body; it’s amazing how the more you stay out of looking at them, the easier it is to embrace the body you’ve been given!
What a beautiful and insightful post. I recently turned 20, and a few months before that, my body began to go through changes eerily similar to puberty. My boobs randomly grew a size, my hips got a bit wider, and I generally looked curvier. Thankfully, I’d been on this journey long enough (and have been reading your blog long enough) that I didn’t freak out and instead just bought some new bras and some new dresses and tossed everything that didn’t fit. I realized that though my body looked different, I could still learn to love it. Though what didn’t help was my mom constantly drawing attention to the fact that my body was changing and telling me that I’m “doing something wrong” with my workouts or something. She was convinced my boobs had grown as a result of upper body weight training……yup. I would love if you could do a post sometime on dealing with family members/friends’ well-meaning comments that often can be quite hurtful and get in your head. Thank you always!
I have a different story from a lot of women. In high school, I went through a period of depression and started binging frequently, so I was in a much larger body than I am now. I yo-yo dieted for years after that, but in my mid-20s I started what I thought was just a “lifestyle” change that developed into a full-blown eating disorder. I had HA, and after several years of my ED, I started to learn more about intuitive eating and therefore gained back a bit of weight. This means I don’t look back at my high school body and miss it, because I’m a little smaller now than I was then. However, I do occasionally look back at my body of just a few years ago and miss it a little bit. I don’t ever want to go back to the life I had then because though I was smaller, I certainly wasn’t happier. Reading blogs like yours and Kylie’s has probably been the most important thing I’ve done to help my (still growing) mindset. I’d never really heard of body checking until I started seeing it in blog posts. I started to notice that I was doing it ALL THE TIME. I’ve definitely made a conscious effort to stop that. Thanks for being such a great source of body positivity!
thank you for sharing Ashley! Everyone’s story is different and I know someone is going to find comfort in yours!
You mentioned the example of picturing a mother who is soft and fleshy but what if someone never wants to be a mother and that’s part of the reason they really dislike fat? I know for a fact I never ever want to be pregnant. It just really grosses me out and so to have my body look womanly and fertile is something I’m learning to accept but by no means is it something I find comfort in.
Different things will resonate for different people so that is totally okay if that doesn’t for you. The analogy isn’t necessarily there for comfort, but rather a reality check against the lies of diet culture. Aside from being a mother, women are genetically designed to be more soft and fleshy than society has told us ….the messages the media surrounds us with tells us to be fit and toned and that body fat is bad. Accepting that can be really really really hard but perhaps looking at it that way could be helpful?
Getting clothes that fit makes a huge difference! For a long time I resisted buying “plus size” clothes just because I didn’t want to fit into that label. I stuffed myself into clothes that were too small and made me feel miserable and hate my body. When I finally gave in and bought some plus size pants, I was amazed at how much well-fitting clothes actually INCREASED my confidence and acceptance of my body. Now all I look for are clothes that are comfortable and flattering – who cares about the size?!
Great post!
Have you ever seen a picture of yourself and its not completely flattering so you make the person delete it (if its not your own)?
Body checking, yah, its a thing and its not healthy to do all the time, so stopping is smart, or even being conscious of how often you do it and then try to minimize it.
Ironically today, just a few minutes ago, I threw away a pair of 20 year old jeans. They fit, but not the same as they did 20 year ago (I am 47). My body is changing, I have hips now, which I didn’t have before and although I am working hard to ward off the meno-pot, my body IS still changing and I have to accept it. So I congratulated myself for still being a size 4 but also said, don’t keep clothes that make you feel less than awesome! So they went in the bag for Goodwill and I am ok with that.
I also think for women there is such a stigma for us with regard to what size means. What I am learning is, I can kill myself at the gym, starve myself and miss out on yummy foods and great drinks or I can practice balance without sacrifice and focus on healthy vs. skinny. I love and actually teach yoga, am a certified barre instructor and I am an avid hiker. I will no longer kill myself to get a workout in, I exercise to feel good and that has been an awesome shift in my life.
So for all of you who are looking at yourselves and calling yourself gross or fat, stop. If you feel you have a weight problem then work on that and where the issue stems from, but if your body is simply going through natural changes….embrace them.
Love who you are, madly and unconditionally!
Avesha