Self-Care & Weight Loss – Why Looking After Yourself Improves Mind and Body

Before embarking on your own personal weight loss journey, there are a few things you need to consider. Chief among them is how what you’re about to do might affect you—both physically and mentally.

In recent times, the notion of ‘self-care’ has become much more culturally prominent¹. Looking after ourselves, our bodies and our mental health is being promoted more than ever, and techniques like mindfulness are increasingly popular². We’re all beginning to understand the value of taking care of our health, in so many different ways.

This is also true for anyone trying to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way, with self-care and weight loss going hand in hand. In fact, what you eat can play a huge role in your self-care for much more than just weight loss, and looking after yourself properly during your weight loss journey can improve both your mind and body.

With that in mind, here we explore how the concept of self-care and weight loss can help you reach your weight loss goals and lead to a healthier and happier lifestyle in the future.

What is self-care?

The concept is relatively simple, and the connections between self-care and weight loss are relatively apparent. Self-care is all about taking a level of ownership over your own health. It doesn’t mean foregoing medical help when needed, it just means doing some basic things to ensure that you’re as healthy as you can be.

Be it physically, with your body, or mentally, with your mind, self-care is about consciously attending to your own needs. It’s about making deliberate decisions in order to ensure that your wellbeing is in good shape.

It can be reactive or preventative. If you’re feeling under the weather and develop a cough, you may decide to rest up and take an over-the-counter cough medicine and stock up on kale³. That’s reactive. If you know that you tend to become listless and unhappy if you’re cooped up inside for too long, you may decide to go for a daily 15 minute walk. That’s preventative.

The connection between self-care and weight loss

When you think about it, self-care and weight loss are intertwined. Achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight is often considered an integral part of self-care.

It’s tempting to regard losing weight in purely numerical terms. Numbers and figures are useful metrics for charting your journey, but weight loss isn’t just about burning more calories than you consume.

A person’s mindset is central to shedding kilos. Only when a weight loss plan doesn’t go to plan, there’s usually a reason. And it’s generally connected to the mental approach of the person trying to lose the weight⁴.

If you’re too unwell or in such poor physical shape that exercise is made extremely difficult*, it can be tempting to abandon your plans. Similarly, if you’re not mentally in the right place to plan and execute a diet and exercise regime, it’s likely you won’t succeed⁵.

Self-care ideas for a weight loss plan

There are lots of different ways a person can practice self-care during weight loss. Here are some of the very best:

Improve your ‘sleep health’ – Being well rested is a must for anyone looking to overhaul their general health. A lack of sleep can exacerbate low mood⁶. Plus you need energy to exercise. So make sure you’re getting enough nightly rest. Good sleep health will also help you hit your long-term goals⁷ and ensure your practicing good self-care during weight loss.

• Get into a ‘planning’ habit – It can be difficult to stick to any diet or exercise plan amidst chaos. So start planning. Set times for things. Even set alarms if you have to. A little order may bring stability to your day. It’ll also free up time for meal planning and keeping fit, supporting self-care and eating throughout the day.
• Treat yourself – If you’re busy, it’s easy to find yourself never really taking any time for yourself. So try to schedule an amount of time per day for doing the things you love. Whether it’s walking, reading, gaming, meditating, yoga or just watching TV. It can be anything — even a healthy snack you really enjoy as part of your self-care and weight loss plan.
• Consider therapy – Now this may seem drastic, but therapy can be beneficial for many people. Letting go of the past and moving on into the future is serious self-care. Therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) aren’t just for helping overcome severe trauma. In fact, this kind of therapy has actually been shown to help people lose weight⁸.
• Enjoy an occasional hot bath – There’s nothing quite as soothing and relaxing as a nice, hot, deep bubble bath. Not only are they proven to reduce stress, hot baths have actually been shown to burn calories—helping you achieve self-care and weight loss in one shot!. One study conducted by Loughborough University showed that an hour in the tub can burn off up to 240 calories. That’s the same as half an hour of walking⁹.

The importance of body positivity

The ‘body positivity’ movement that’s become so prevalent online in recent years feeds into self-care and weight loss. At its core, it seeks to promote self-esteem and peace with your shape and size¹⁰. If you can be at peace with how you look, you’ll likely feel the benefit in your mental health.

Of course, taken too far, the idea could be argued to be normalising obesity or even promoting it. This may well be the case with those that argue extreme versions of body positivity¹¹. At its core, however, it is a positive campaign which encourages people not to get bogged down with potentially unattainable physical shapes, sizes and weights seen in often airbrushed images fed to us by the media and social media.

Body positivity isn’t a reason to quit getting fitter and healthier. It’s merely a temporary tool to employ when your weight loss plans hit a snag. Research has demonstrated that our body image is very closely linked to both our mental health and our approach to weight management¹². So it may be unwise to ignore it.

Try a little self-care. Look after yourself mentally and physically and you may just find it all synchronises nicely with reaching your ideal weight and body shape. For more information on self care, healthy and sustainable weight loss, and tips and guidance on how to maintain your ideal weight, explore the XLS blog today.