“I Hate My Postpartum Body”: Reframing Negative Thoughts

Does this sound familiar to you?

If so, you are not alone. During pregnancy and the postpartum period, our bodies undergo major changes to support our growing baby. Let’s unpack these thoughts and go over my top tips for fostering a more positive body image and relationship with food. 

Pregnant folks are incredible. 

Before getting into any tips, I want to take a moment to reflect on how incredible pregnancy is. It’s wild to me that our bodies are able to grow a human being from scratch. This is such a huge accomplishment that many of us overlook because it's ..well, “normal”. 

If you’ve grown a baby, I’m guessing you are very familiar with pregnancy fatigue. Guilt about our productivity and activity levels often starts during the very first few weeks. Getting off the couch typically feels impossible and all you want to do is sleep. Am I right? 

Well, this is because our bodies are doing such an important job. Most of our energy is allocated to preparing our body to be the home for a tiny human that we will nourish and grow for several months to come. 

During this process so many changes occur. We start operating at 2.2 times the normal resting metabolic rate (what ?!). Our breasts change, our hips widen, our blood volume doubles, our uterus grows, we grow a placenta (a whole freaking organ!), and the list goes on. It’s truly incredible. 

As a result, our body's appearance changes quite a bit. I’ve heard from many individuals that they don’t recognize their own bodies by the end of pregnancy. That’s an incredibly hard and valid feeling to have.

I am hoping that when those thoughts arise you can remind yourself that you are enough just as you are. That your body is/was a home for another human. That these changes were necessary and so very important. I hope that the scars remind you that you did something incredibly beautiful - brought a life into this world! 

How to Shift Your Mindset

Let’s dive into a three step process for shifting negative thoughts when they arise. 

1. Notice How You Are Feeling 

The first step to working through negative feelings is by simply acknowledging them. Try not to judge your feelings during this process. 

I like to start with a simple sentence: “I feel _____”.  

Sometimes negative thoughts can start to spiral before we even realize it’s happening. The only way we can start to reframe them is to start noticing when this happens. 

2. Question Negative Thoughts

Why do you think you are feeling this way? Is this thought helpful or true? Do these thoughts occur more often in certain situations? What has your body experienced over the last year, or last few months? What is it experiencing now? What sort of experiences are likely to come? Are you overlooking any really positive things that have happened? 

Thinking about your body and your eating habits across various stages in life is the key to healthy living in a sustainable way. Bounce back culture is so toxic. It’s not normal to jump back to your pre-pregnancy weight immediately. It took nine months for your body to grow a baby - any sort of quick fix is unfortunately likely to cause more harm than good.

Just because you birthed your baby doesn’t mean that your body is finished supporting them (especially if you choose to breastfeed!). You are still healing. You are likely not sleeping well. You spend several hours a day feeding and soothing your baby. You probably don’t have the same flexibility in your day to day schedule for cooking and exercise. 

As bad as you may want to “get back to normal”, normal postpartum looks very different for each person. It’s important to take time to reflect on how you feel and how things have and may continue to evolve in order to find a sustainable way of living healthily in the long term. 

3. Replace The Unhelpful Thought

Is there a way you can rephrase this thought that is more helpful and true?

An example of how to do this might be:

“This year I grew and birthed a healthy baby. My labor was intense and my body needed time to heal. My body has changed, but so has my life. I am going to try and explore this new season of life with more gratitude and patience”. 

I know that this process will not be easy, and may even feel awkward at first and that’s okay! The more that we practice these three steps the easier it becomes. 

A Final Note

This process is not going to stop negative thoughts from arising altogether. Unfortunately, there’s no miracle cure for that. I wish there was! However, over time we can hopefully begin to train our minds to stop negative thought cycles in their tracks before they start to spiral and become all consuming.

If you give this a try, I’d love to hear from you.

Is there anything else that has really helped you navigate these thoughts?

Let me know in the comments!