4 Ways to Take Better Care of Your Body in 2024

The biggest contributor to my rise in confidence throughout my healing journey has been the conscious decision to pay more respect to my body and its needs. 

After purging and restricting on and off for several years, I can now take a step back and acknowledge that that process doesn’t “work” — the disciples of the binge-purge cycle only fall further and further into a pit of low self-esteem. 

While I’ve been working on respect for my body for a few years now, in 2024 I’m committing to taking it to the next level. 

How?

1. Intuitive Eating

Turning to and trusting the process of intuitive eating has lifted a weight off my shoulders that had been there for so long that, by the time I found this practice, I could hardly remember the lightness that accompanies food freedom. 

Listening to hunger cues and feeding my body what it’s asking for — regardless of whether that’s chocolate or broccoli — has restored a level of comfort and gratitude around all types of food that I had almost begun to believe was impossible for me. 

Diets and restrictions are out for 2024; intuitive eating is in. 

2. Activity

We all know the benefits of exercise (reduced stress, better sleep, higher productivity, etc.), but getting into a good groove can be tricky. 

Tricky, but crucial — maintaining an active lifestyle requires that you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing. 

If you hate one form of exercise, that's okay! Just take some time to find something else you really love. Lifting weights at the gym is great for some people; but for those who see it as a dreaded chore, swapping it out for something else (like bouldering, biking, swimming) is 100% encouraged.  

For me, the key is variety — if things get too repetitive, I lose interest. I have friends that are able to run everyday, but that’s just not my cup of tea. So, my active lifestyle looks like a mix-and-match of the following things:

• Walking my dog

• Attending gym classes

• Running outside

• Doing home workouts (I like Move with Nicole for pilates, and Pamela Reif for HIIT)

• Yoga (Yoga with Adriene and Mady Morrison are my faves)

• Salsa dancing

• Dodgeball

3. Resting

Rest days are obviously important for our physical wellness — giving our muscles time to heal and grow stronger — but the mental side is also key. When we put pressure on ourselves to hit daily calorie targets or crush arduous workouts, it can take a toll on our relationships with our bodies, food, and exercise.

When I was in the depths of my disordered eating despair, rest days were a no-go — I didn’t want to give up the opportunity to burn calories for the day, so I felt irritable and off-balance if I skipped a workout. 

But when your muscles are screaming at you for a break, denying them the hard-earned rest tips into the “lack of respect for your body” category and, in my experience, tends to contribute to an increasingly worse body image.

4. Comfort

Wearing ill-fitting, uncomfortable clothes is something I intend to leave behind in 2023. It may not seem like much, but it’s a biggie.

Wearing clothes that make you feel good – both physically and emotionally — is the ultimate win-win. Doing so both improves confidence and mental well-being AND reduces the prevalence of some “unwanteds” like heightened stress, anxiety and the risk of injury. 

This is especially important for those of us who have battled/are battling body dysmorphia. For many, the desire to flaunt a lower clothing size often means we resort to squeezing ourselves into too-tight clothing.

Not only does this mean sitting in discomfort, but it’s also a deeply flawed practice. 

It doesn’t matter how fashionable it is, any piece that is pokey/scratchy/too small will not be seeing the light of day on my body this year.