3 Things to Do If You’re Feeling Pressured to ‘Get in Shape’ for Summer

Cathryne Keller
·6 min read

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One of the best parts of (mostly) recovering from disordered eating is that I no longer get incredibly anxious about my body this time of year. Back when I was deep in diet culture hell, late spring was the time I started counting down the days until summer officially began, trying to calculate how much smaller I could realistically get by that self-imposed deadline: If I eat X (way-too-low) number of calories per day, and Y (sad) amount of carbs, and work out like it’s my job, maybe I’ll look “perfect” in a swimsuit, my life will turn into a rom-com, and I’ll never feel sad and anxious; I’ll finally feel thin enough, beautiful enough, and good enough.

But that’s the thing: It was never enough. Even when I reached my physical “goals,” I still felt an underlying emptiness (not to mention bottomless hunger) because the validation and love I was seeking could only come from detoxing from diet culture, healing from childhood trauma, and working on self-acceptance.

After doing all that real work, I’m happy to report that I’m now anxiously awaiting summer’s arrival for much more fun reasons: I can’t wait to feel the warmth of the sun on my (SPF-coated) face, get together with my favorite people for trips and special events, and swim my little heart out in the lake by my family’s summer cottage rental.

All that to say, I know what it’s like to feel intense internal and external pressure to get “in shape for summer” or “ready for swimsuit season.” But I also know how it feels to be (mostly) free from it, and that’s what I want for you too. So I asked psychologist Alexis Conason, PhD, eating disorder therapist and author of The Diet Free Revolution, for her best advice on how to prevent “summer body” BS from ruining your confidence—and your fun.

Recognize where this pressure is coming from—and remember that your body is not the problem!

“When diet talk gets loud, it can help to remember that there’s a multibillion dollar weight-loss industry invested in us believing that there’s something wrong with our bodies,” Dr. Conason says. “It’s no wonder, then, that when springtime rolls around, we all start to feel the pressure to get ‘bikini ready.’” But it can also be hard to remember that you’re constantly being sold the lie that your body isn’t acceptable, she acknowledges, since weight-loss marketing is much sneakier these days: Maybe you get a newsletter from your gym promoting a summer “toning” challenge, see a convincing “wellness” supplement ad on your Instagram feed, or hear a podcast ad for a weight-loss app being disguised as a healthy way to “stop dieting.”

Since this messaging can be so subtle, Dr. Conason suggests making a point to call it out when it gets in your head: “Whenever I start to notice negative body-image thoughts creeping in, I try to pause and ask myself: Who is profiting from me believing that about my body?” she says. “Let’s keep the blame where it belongs—on diet culture—not on our bodies that are just trying to do the best they can to keep us alive.”

Curate your social media feed.

“The mainstream media puts forth an impossible ideal of beauty and so many of us feel caught spinning our wheels striving towards it,” Dr. Conason says. “Diet culture tells us that we have to conform to this ideal in order to be happy, healthy, and live a full and vibrant life.” The thing is, that’s simply not true. But it feels true in our thinness-obsessed society, which is why she advises surrounding yourself with evidence to the contrary: “I highly recommend filling your social media feed with people of all different shapes and sizes who are out there having fun with fashion, spending time with their families, and living their lives free of diet talk and body hatred.”

Regularly seeing people with a variety of body types having a good ol’ time can help counter the harmful (and untrue!) message that thinner equals happier, according to Dr. Conason. And on the flip side, if you find that certain social media accounts make you feel like crap about yourself, unfollow them ASAP—that’s another sneaky form of diet culture that can hold you back from accepting yourself and enjoying your life (during summer and beyond).

Show your body some gratitude.

“We live in a culture that teaches us to see ourselves as a never-ending work-in-progress and to view every perceived imperfection as a problem to solve, so it can be radical to think about the things that we like about our bodies!” Dr. Conason says. As unnatural as it may feel to switch from a critical lens to a kinder one, though, it’s totally worth the initial discomfort.

“Research suggests that fostering gratitude for our bodies by spending time focusing on the things we appreciate about them can help improve body image,” she explains. Here’s a simple exercise she recommends: Think of three things you like about your body and journal about them for five minutes (or just jot them down in a notebook if you don’t keep a journal). You can include things about its appearance and/or how it functions. For example, do you love the way your eyes smile when you do, just like your mom’s or dad’s? Are you grateful that your legs are strong enough to go on morning jogs or simply take you everywhere you need to go? Or maybe you’re in awe of the fact that your body is breathing in and out, circulating blood, and keeping you alive right now?

Showing yourself appreciation in this way won’t erase the fact that you live in a culture that’s obsessed with thinness and treats larger people worse than smaller people. But, like Dr. Conason’s other advice above, it can help you build up internal armor against these forces, which you can rely on when you start doubting yourself and your worth.

Seeing diet culture for what it is, unfollowing a bunch of toxic fitness influencers, and reminding myself to be grateful for my body has certainly helped me. I won’t lie and say I never have bad body-image days anymore, or feel tempted to google a celebrity’s diet, but that stuff only occasionally pops up now—and it lives in the back of my mind, not the front. What I’m mostly thinking about now that Memorial Day is around the corner? I’m so excited for summer!

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Originally Appeared on SELF