149. Feeling Your Way to Optimal Health

Your body is always talking to you. You need to learn how to listen. In this episode, I’m talking about feeling your way toward optimal health. From learning to accept your body at any stage of your journey to using all your senses to combat body dysmorphia, it’s all about getting in touch with your intuition… and, more importantly: listening to it.   How to Use Your Senses Other Than Sight What do you pay attention to? What are you smelling? How do your clothes feel right now? Are you hungry? Do you have hunger cues right now? What do you need right now?   Feel Your Way Towards Optimal Health Through nudges, feelings, health manifestations, and more, our bodies are always giving us the information we need at any moment. Listening, though, is the hard part I take some time in this episode to talk about the differences between body acceptance, body image, and body dysmorphia – specifically, how they relate to each other and how we might experience dysmorphia, especially when we don’t listen to our intuition. My wish for all of us is to experience body acceptance regardless of where we are in our journey with our bodies. You don’t need to be happy with every aspect, but finding body acceptance will help your feelings of body dysmorphia.   The Intuitive Side of You If you’ve been on your weight loss journey for a while and have lost some weight, your brain might not have caught up to this loss. This is one instance where body dysmorphia might happen – you can’t trust what you see with your eyes. If this resonates with you, I challenge you to use your other senses to experience your changes. When you rely on your other senses, you’ll realize that your eyes (and connection to your brain) aren’t telling you the whole story. Take away how you think you look. How do you feel? This is the real question you need to ask yourself. How does your body feel? What can you do to promote its feeling as best as it possibly can physically? Let me know in the comments on the episode page how this resonates with you.   In This Episode  How to start listening to your intuition [5:00] What you need to know about body acceptance, body image, and body dysmorphia [6:15] What it means to keep your body [8:00] How all-or-nothing thinking impacts body dysmorphia [13:30] How to use your other senses to work through body dysmorphia [15:30] How to honor your body and how it feels [22:30] How to use your thoughts to promote your health [27:30]   Quotes “The idea of feeling your way to optimal health is where we get out of our head, get into our body, and allow our body to guide us into making decisions that are going to really serve us.” [1:54] “Instead of trying to think of the answer, just make the decision based on how you feel.” [4:17] “We want to be able to celebrate where we are now, but also where we are going. If we’re able to accept ourselves now, there’s going to be no big difference in accepting ourselves later. The idea is to find self-acceptance no matter where we are because it's only going to benefit us, particularly when we make positive changes.” [11:42] “To be able to move past the judgment that we have on our body that becomes dysmorphic, we have to start to hold off on making a judgment on what we see, or what we think we see, with our body. We have to get very much in tune with how we feel in our body.” [20:10] “When you start giving yourself and your body the love and attention it needs, guess what happens? You’re willing to look at it differently.” [24:25]   Resources 31 Days of FIT.  Learn more HERE. Muscle Maintenance During Fat Loss. Waitlist HERE. Fit Woman Collective™. Learn more HERE. Follow Dr. Ali Novitsky on TikTok | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube Subscribe to The Muscles and Mindset Podcast on Apple Podcasts *** Ali Novitsky MD, this podcast, and podcast write-up are NOT providing medical advice ***   Related Episodes  Episode 128: Rethinking Weight Loss Episode 117: Redefining You Episode 123: Why Your Diet Isn't Working