When you’re working on repairing your relationship with food, recovering your period, or healing from disordered eating, your body will likely change. These changes can feel like a loss—especially when they pull you further away from the body you’ve spent years believing you needed to be happy.
It’s an incredibly tough pill to swallow: the body size or shape you’ve idealized for so long might not be the healthiest, most sustainable body for you. Coming to terms with this can feel like grieving, not just for the body itself but for the life you thought that body would give you.
The False Promises of Diet Culture
Diet culture sells us the idea that achieving the “dream” body will solve everything: happiness, confidence, self-worth, success. It whispers that with enough effort, discipline, and motivation, you can mold yourself into this ideal. But it conveniently leaves out the cost—what it takes to fight against your biology, genetics, and mental health to get there.
The truth is, no body size can guarantee happiness, acceptance, or worth. What we’re really mourning isn’t the body itself; it’s the hope, control, and sense of purpose we attached to it.
Letting Go of the “If Only” Mindset
For many, the dream body becomes a symbol of “if only.”
- If only I looked like that, I’d feel confident.
- If only I weighed less, I’d be happier.
- If only I fit that ideal, people would love and respect me more.
But the reality is, those feelings don’t automatically come with weight loss or aesthetic changes. The “dream” body is often an illusion, a distraction from the deeper work of finding worth and contentment that isn’t tied to how you look.
Grieving this ideal means acknowledging that it’s not the body itself you’re longing for, but the emotional promises you believed it could deliver.
What Comes After Letting go of your “Dream” body
Despite what it might feel like, letting go of your dream body doesn’t mean you’ll never feel self-worth or self-acceptance again. It means letting go of the idea that they can only come from achieving a specific body size.
This process creates space to rebuild a healthier, more compassionate relationship with yourself—one that’s not dependent on meeting a rigid ideal. It allows you to focus on what truly matters:
- Nourishing your body in a way that supports your health and well-being.
- Pursuing goals and activities that bring joy and fulfillment beyond appearance.
- Building self-worth from within, instead of outsourcing it to external standards.
This journey is hard, and it won’t happen overnight. But the freedom, peace, and fulfilment on the other side make it worth every step.
A Gentle Reminder
It’s okay to grieve the body you thought you needed. That grief is a natural and important part of moving forward. But remember: letting go of the dream body doesn’t mean letting go of happiness, confidence, or self-worth. It means finding those things in places that truly nourish you—places that aren’t conditional on how you look.
You are more than your body. You always have been.
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