episode 112: does changing your appearance change your body image?
Today is the third episode in the unofficial body image series and in episode 112 I’m talking about how we use aesthetic changes to feel good about ourselves. Essentially answering the question: how does body image affect self esteem? Is it possible to shift your negative body image?
Whether its getting dressed, doing your hair, wearing make up, dieting to change what your body looks like, getting injections, having plastic surgery….all of these external changes live on a spectrum and I want to help give you a framework for how to use them in a way that will actually get you the result you’re after.
Here’s what I’m talking about today:
Why not all external changes are the same (I.e. putting on make up is not the same as dieting to lose weight)
How to figure out which changes are the right ones for you and will get you the outcome you want
How my own experience with plastic surgery affected my body image
Why you can’t rely on how and what you look like to provide your self worth
So many of us spend our lives thinking “why do I hate my body” and today’s episode offers tools to help shift those feelings and negative body image thoughts.
I have 1:1 coaching spots available and if you’re struggling with feeling uncomfortable in your own body and are realizing that another diet isn’t going to change it, I’m your girl. Click here to set up a time to chat to see if coaching could be a good fit for you.
Episodes referenced:
107 The one question that can change your body image
109 How to actually feel happy in your body
90 Living by your values to find your happiest, best body for life
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[00:00:29] Hey everyone, it's episode 112 of The Diet Diaries. Real Talk. This is my fourth take on this episode today, which doesn't usually happen very rarely. Um, first take, I just started talking and really, I don't know, felt like I didn't have my thoughts together. Then I did my second take and realized that my microphone was on mute, which it was for the first epi , the first take too.
[00:00:55] So then I did my third take, and then I didn't have my computer on, um, [00:01:00] do not disturb, and I started getting text messages and it disturbed, it like disturbed me and I just totally lost my focus and felt like I had kind of been rambling. Anyway, so here we go. Take four. Just keeping it real with you.
[00:01:14] Before I hop in, wanted to let you know that I have one-to-one coaching spots open. So if you have been feeling like you want to make a change around food, you've been dieting on and off, not getting the results you want, feeling obsessed with food, relying on the scale, just feeling unhappy and kind of just not great in your body, and knowing that another diet or another meal plan is not gonna do it because it would've worked by now.
[00:01:42] Maybe coaching is the thing. Um, you can set up a free call. There's no obligation. It's complimentary. So it's just a chance for us to talk, for me to get to know you, for you to share what's been going on, what you're struggling with, what you would want help with. And I can talk about the coaching process and how that could maybe line up, um, and help [00:02:00] support your needs.
[00:02:01] Um, again, there's no obligation. If it sounds like something you wanna do, great, we get started, and if not, then you've got a couple of nuggets to kind of go off with, um, and start on your own. So it's kinda like a win-win. There's a link in the show notes to set up a time to talk, um, and also on my website at any time.
[00:02:18] So today's episode one 12. This is gonna be the third in kind of the quote body image series, which is, you know, very informal. Episodes 1 0 7 and 1 0 9 were the first two. This is the third one. And what I wanted to talk about today is something that I've talked about a little bit on social media and that is around how we use, um, sort of external actions around our appearance to feel good about ourselves.
[00:02:46] Does that actually impact our body image? How and why? Is it okay? How is that different than dieting? So I've been talking a lot recently about how important getting dressed is for me. [00:03:00] And by getting dressed, I mean not just wearing like leggings or like sweats all day, like putting on an outfit that could be leggings and like a nice sweater.
[00:03:10] It could be jeans and a top, whatever it is. But actually putting some thought into what I am wearing and really feeling good about it, like putting in effort versus just defaulting to, I'm gonna put on these joggers and this sweatshirt because I don't feel like putting in effort. And that putting on clothes in that way is a game changer for me.
[00:03:29] It changes a lot about how I feel about myself, and it changes the way that I perceive my body. It positively impacts my body image, right? Body image is your perception of your body. It's the meaning that you assigned to it. Can change pretty frequently, right? You know, some days you'll have, you'll feel pretty good, and the next day you'll feel like shit about how your body looks.
[00:03:52] Even though factually, objectively, nothing has changed, right? What has changed is your feelings around your body, which [00:04:00] can be impacted and triggered by so many things. And for me, constantly wearing clothes that are just sort of like whatever starts to have a negative impact on my body image. This applies around hair and makeup for me as well.
[00:04:17] I love wearing makeup. I love putting on makeup. I find it to be relaxing and calming. I enjoy it. I love reading about makeup. I love watching makeup videos. I love shopping for makeup. And historically I'll buy it and spend money on it, and I'll wear it for like a week, and then I'll just sit there because I'll stop putting in the effort. Because it does, it's not like it takes, I'm spending, I mean, I will spend five or 10 minutes doing makeup max.
[00:04:42] 10 minutes would be a lot. It's not like I'm, I'm not putting tons of foundation and like full eye makeup. It's just like a little bit to, you know, sort of accentuate and brighten up my face basically. Um, and when I do [00:05:00] that, again, it makes a huge difference in how I feel about myself. Not because I think that people will like how I look better, but because I like how I look better.
[00:05:17] And that's not to say that I don't go out not wearing makeup. I probably go out not wearing makeup more of the time than I go out wearing makeup. So I am not relying on that as my only way to feel good about myself. And that's kind of the big thing here is when we use these external changes or actions. Hair, makeup, clothes, fat loss, , that thing cannot be what makes us feel good about ourselves.
[00:05:52] It can maybe be a part of it, but it can't be the biggest thing for sure. Can't be the only thing. [00:06:00] Can't even be, I would say, in like maybe the top few. And that's kind of where things get murky.
[00:06:12] You know the difference for me between getting dressed, doing my hair, putting on makeup and dieting as a way to feel good about yourself, right? If all of these things are about our external appearance, like what's the difference? How do we delineate between what's okay and what's not okay? And ultimately there's no rules, but you get to decide for yourself what's okay and what's not okay. is that hair and makeup and clothes are weight neutral, right?
[00:06:39] You can do, you can work on do those things no matter what your size of your shape is at any time. Dieting is explicitly about changing the size of your body to feel good, and it is something that we don't know the outcome of. Right? When you put on makeup, you know what it's gonna look like. When you get dressed, you know what it's gonna look like.
[00:06:58] When you do your hair, you know what it's [00:07:00] gonna look like. When you diet, you're like, I don't know. I don't know when something's gonna happen, and you're just miserable, right? And and the reality is that, I mentioned this before. I enjoy putting on makeup. I love shopping for it. I love learning about it. I love putting on it that the whole process feels good for me.
[00:07:17] There is nothing that feels good about dieting, right? Except for maybe that kind of false sense of control that it gives you, right? There's restriction, there's rigidity, there's rules that then create guilt and shame, and all of these emotions. There's nothing enjoyable about that, and so like going in my closet and picking out an outfit or spending time like using a hot tool on my hair or putting on makeup for me, those are enjoyable processes that help me.
[00:07:46] The process feels good and the outcome feels good. That is very different than using a diet to feel good about your body. And this really comes down to what are your values [00:08:00] and how are you taking action in a way that lines up with them? Because if you really get honest with yourself, right?
[00:08:06] Different people have different values, and that's fine. And that means that our actions are going to be different. However, most people, I would say hardly anyone, or maybe nobody, I hate speaking in absolutes, but maybe nobody values things that are going to make them feel guilt and shame that are going to sacrifice their mental and emotional wellbeing that are going to cause them extreme amounts of additional stress the way that a diet does.
[00:08:33] Now, if putting on makeup every day does that for you, then that would be not in alignment with your values. Like if you hate the process of putting on makeup and then maybe you wouldn't do it. It's not that black and white because sometimes the process we don't always love, but the outcome is worth it.
[00:08:55] But still, if that [00:09:00] process creates a sacrifice or a negative impact on your mental or emotional wellbeing, the outcome is never worth it, right? So there's really a lot of nuance to this. You might not love putting on makeup, but you might look, you might like the way you look when it's done. That is not the same as not enjoying a diet.
[00:09:16] But liking the outcome of being in a smaller body. They're not the same. One because putting on makeup is like a five or 10 minute thing. A diet is months and years of inflicting pain on yourself, right? They're just not the same thing. We cannot create an analogy between these two things. I think we think we can at the surface.
[00:09:41] And that was kind of why I wanted to do this episode, is to kind of really parse out the way we use these different actions to feel good about ourselves. If you go farther down the spectrum of like some of these external things we can do to like, you know, injections and plastic surgery, well, [00:10:00] plastic surgery, one could argue like you're having surgery, like you're physically inflicting pain on yourself.
[00:10:05] Like, where does that fall? That's not for me to say, I'm not here to judge you. I had plastic surgery when I was 16. I had a rhinoplasty, better known as a nose job. I have talked about that very openly before. There's an entire podcast episode about it. I'm not sure what number it is, but I will link it in the show notes if you're interested.
[00:10:23] I talk about why, I talk about my experience. I talk about am I happy I did it? Do I have any regrets? Um, at the time that was an alignment with my values and what felt right for me. Um, and so if you are someone who has had plastic surgery or is considering plastic surgery, That's fine. My guidance, my suggestion would be, is to think about why am I doing this?
[00:10:50] What is the outcome that I am hoping for? Obviously there's a physical, there's an aesthetic outcome. I'm not really talking about that. I'm talking about what are the implications, what's the [00:11:00] impact of that aesthetic outcome? Are you relying on this as the only way to feel good about yourself?
[00:11:06] Do you think this is sort of like the magical thing that's going to make you happy with how you look, because that becomes a slippery slope As someone who had a nose job, um, I can tell you that it doesn't work that way. Like changing the size and shape of my nose did not automatically like make me pretty. In fact, it was after that that my severe issues with disordered eating and body and started. Not as a result of that, but it was like, okay, now I have like aesthetically speaking, a nicer looking nose, you know, that's very subjective. It doesn't mean that I now like love everything about myself. Like it was quite the opposite.
[00:11:53] So if you think that doing that one thing is going to kind of like be the magical answer it's [00:12:00] not.
[00:12:00] And so that's what I'm saying, like you need to really think about what's your why. Whether it's like putting on makeup or, again, across this whole spectrum, why am I doing this? How does this line up with my values? And how do I think this is going to impact my life? How is my life going to change as a result of this?
[00:12:18] And am I sacrificing anything around my mental and emotional wellbeing in order to get this outcome. Because that I will speak in absolutes --is never worth it. Right. Um, and it's just really about getting brutally honest with yourself. And that might be scary and I'm comfortable and you might not like the answer and that's okay.
[00:12:42] Because if you can get to the answer before you do the thing and realize maybe there's another way into this, maybe there's something else I can do that will get me a, a longer term, more, um, impactful outcome [00:13:00] without going through kind of this arduous process like surgery. That's a win. Um, because everything, how we perceive ourselves as subjective.
[00:13:11] This is body image. Um, and yes, we all, it is completely normal to care about our appearance. That is normal. But again, it's about what are the actions that I am willing to take in order to modify my appearance, and what do I think that is going to get me? How is that going to impact my life? I know that when I put makeup on each day, it just makes me feel like a little brighter, a little happier, a little I just feel nice.
[00:13:48] On the days that I don't, I don't feel like worse or crappy. Um, it just kind of becomes a tool when I want to put in that effort. But I know that I can also feel good on the days that I don't have [00:14:00] on makeup because of who I am, because of the actions I'm taking in other parts of my life.
[00:14:06] And again, that's what this comes back to.
[00:14:08] This is why I always talk about like I coach fat loss. I believe in fat loss. I don't believe in fat loss as a way to feel better about how you feel about yourself. It can absolutely help you feel better in your skin from kind of like a movement and a mobility standpoint. Um, and the way you kind of move through the world and the way you're kind of carrying yourself.
[00:14:34] But losing fat, just like putting on makeup and doing your hair is not a kind of, um, given to just automatically feel great about yourself. You must have other ways that you are taking action to help you do that. The aesthetic part, that external part about how you look cannot be the only one. It will not work.
[00:14:58] I speak from experience. I had [00:15:00] plastic surgery again, I had a nose job. And it did not make me feel like, oh great, I'm so pretty now. Everything's wonderful. My life is great. No, that's not what happened. Um, and I look at myself now and I see my nose and I'm like, oh, wouldn't it be nice? Like, what if it had changed this or what if I changed this?
[00:15:18] But I know, I'm like, I know that's not gonna make me feel better. I, I know that I have other things that I can rely on. And so it really is about this very kind of deep internal work. And I know that sounds sometimes like, not woo woo, but like abstract and kind of hard to wrap your brain around.
[00:15:39] But really what it's about is identifying your values. And I did an episode about that as well, which I will link and I may do another more in-depth one soon. But when I talk about values, it's like you can value, you know, connection, commitment, gratitude, authenticity, um, working hard, uh, [00:16:00] trustworthiness.
[00:16:00] Um, you can value being adventurous. Um, you can value kindness. There's so many values you can have. And it's say, well, how do I take action on those? And is the action I'm taking representing those values, am I showing up in that way? And that's what I mean by the work. Is getting honest about that stuff and really getting honest about whether the actions you're taking line up with those things.
[00:16:24] Right? Because if you are jumping from diet to diet and restricting food and being, being really rigid, not allowing yourself to eat certain things to lose weight. If you look at what your values are, I guarantee you there will be a mismatch. Those actions will not line up with your values, and that's why it never sticks.
[00:16:43] That is why you were always on a diet. That is why you're always jumping from, um, you know, if you're constantly using hair or makeup or getting injections or any of these things to make you feel better about yourself, if they're not in alignment with what really makes you, you, it [00:17:00] will never do what you want it to do.
[00:17:02] And that is kind of the crux of what I wanted to share today. Um, I'm kind of thinking that maybe I would do a workshop around values. I don't know. I gotta think about this. I talk about this so much and I want you to have clarity on it. I want you, I, I don't want it to be vague. I want it to be specific and useful and, um, I just wanna continue to think more about how to do that.
[00:17:31] So I hope this just got you thinking again. Like that is always my objective is to get you thinking and, and this is something that I spend a lot of time thinking about that I've done a lot of work on, on my own. Um, and so I just love to share with you. Um, if you have thoughts, if this is bringing up stuff for you and you wanna have a conversation, I'm always here on the other side of your headphones.
[00:17:57] Um, send me an email, send me a DM on [00:18:00] Instagram. And, um, thank you for being here.
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