Nearly 80% of women and 34% of men say they don’t like their body.
That statistic alone tells us something important: struggling with body confidence isn’t a personal failure it’s a cultural one.
Every February, as Valentine’s Day approaches, we’re surrounded by messages about love but very few of them focus on self-love or feeling at peace in your own body. This is especially true for people navigating weight loss, experimenting with intermittent fasting, or trying to rebuild trust with their body after years of dieting.
If you’re searching for weight loss in Toronto or working with an intermittent fasting doctor, here’s something I want you to hear clearly:
Body confidence is not something you earn after weight loss it’s something you practice while caring for your health.
In fact, the more body confidence and self-compassion you cultivate, the more sustainable your weight loss becomes.
Here are ten ways to boost your self-confidence and leave you feeling great in your own skin.
1. Shift Your Focus From Just Weight Loss to Health
One of the fastest ways to erode body confidence is measuring success only by the scale. This is especially true for people doing intermittent fasting weight loss, where changes in body composition don’t always show up immediately.
Instead of focusing solely on pounds lost, start paying attention to signs of real health:
- Improved blood work, blood pressure, or energy
- Feeling stronger or moving with more ease
- Noticing that clothes fit differently
- Craving nourishing foods more often
Weight loss does not automatically equal health. When you redefine success around how your body functions, not just how it looks, confidence begins to grow naturally.
2. Practice Self-Love as Something You Do, Not Just Think
Loving your body doesn’t mean you have to love how it looks every day. It means treating it with care and respect consistently.
Self-love can look like a massage, a nourishing skincare routine, a warm bath, or a gentle yoga class. These small rituals send a powerful message to your nervous system: I am worth caring for.
This matters deeply for long-term weight loss. When people approach intermittent fasting or nutrition changes from a place of self-care rather than self-punishment, they are far more likely to stay consistent. Self-criticism increases stress hormones; self-compassion supports metabolic health.
3. Use Intermittent Fasting to Build Awareness, Not Control
One often overlooked benefit of intermittent fasting is the increased awareness it creates.
During fasting periods, many people notice thoughts, emotions, and habits more clearly such as eating in response to stress, boredom, or self-judgment. This isn’t a problem; it’s an opportunity.
Rather than reacting or criticizing yourself, fasting allows you to observe. That awareness builds mindfulness and emotional regulation, which are essential for sustainable weight loss. Over time, this process helps people feel more in tune with their body instead of at war with it.
4. Give Yourself Permission to Take a Mental Break
Who decided you need to think about your body every single day?
Constantly worrying about food, weight, or appearance creates mental fatigue. Just like the body needs recovery after intense exercise, the mind needs recovery from constant self-monitoring. In my Weight loss Assessment Questionnaire we ask how often a person thinks about their food, weight, clothes or anything associated with their weight loss and 90% say they think about it multiple times/day. That is a lot of mental energy put towards this one area of their life.
Taking short breaks from tracking, weighing, or analyzing can actually improve long-term adherence to healthy routines and I have found that intermittent fasting helps facilitate this mental break. Rest is not failure, it’s part of progress.
Just like in exercise – continuous aerobic has the opposite result people want but intense cardio with recovery time does produce better results. So plan mental recovery time away from the worry about your body and weight.
5. Keep Track of Small Wins
When you’re on a health or weight-loss journey, it’s easy to overlook progress because it doesn’t feel dramatic enough.
Create a simple habit of tracking small victories moments where you showed up for yourself. This might include:
- Completing a fast without struggle
- Choosing rest instead of pushing through exhaustion
- Speaking kindly to yourself after a setback
Intermittent fasting often heightens awareness of thoughts and emotions. Pairing that awareness with intentional recognition of wins helps build confidence and inner calm.
We tend to notice the negatives, we have a negative bias which is programmed for protection. The more you pay attention to these smaller victories the more you will notice other smaller victories and this will make you feel proud and at peace with yourself.
6. Meditate to Recondition Body Image Beliefs
Low body confidence is rarely about the body itself. More often, it comes from years of internalized messages about how we should look.
Meditation helps create distance from those thoughts. Practices like mindfulness or Loving Kindness Meditation are especially powerful during fasting, when mental chatter can become louder.
Over time, meditation helps people soften self-judgment, regulate emotions, and feel safer in their body which directly supports healthy weight loss.
7. Take a Break From Social Media Comparison
Social media makes body confidence harder than it needs to be. You’ll never learn how to be confident with your body if you’re constantly comparing yourself to other people’s edited and airbrushed photos.
You never know what kinds of magical angles they’re pulling to take that selfie. And, it’s so addicting that it’s hard not to log on and browse other people’s lives. Instead, take a break from social media.
Deactivate your accounts for a week just to begin with. You’ll see how much more body confidence you have when you don’t feel obligated to compare yourself to others.
8. Dress the Body You Have Right Now
You don’t need to reach a goal weight to deserve clothes that feel good.
Wearing clothing that fits and flatters your body today improves posture, comfort, and confidence. Research even shows that what we wear affects how we think and behave.
Ask for the help of a trusted friend or splurge a bit on a stylist.
Confidence grows faster when you stop waiting to feel “ready.”
9. Speak Kindly to Yourself
Positive self-talk is so important when it comes to body confidence.
Be kind to yourself! Never say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to somebody else. Listen to your inner dialogue and you may be shocked to realize how you are speaking to yourself.
Now imagine speaking in that way to somebody you love, your child, a spouse, a sibling or close friend. Would you ever speak to them that way??? Then why would you ever speak to yourself that way.
Getting out and being kind to others also helps. Sign up for a volunteer opportunity as a way to show kindness to others. Oftentimes, this helps people remove themselves from their own situation to see the bigger picture.
The kinder you are to others, the more you’ll be able to learn how to be kind to yourself.
10. Let Your Posture Support Your Confidence
Body confidence isn’t only mental, it’s physical.
In the 14th century, one zen master even believed that sitting straight up with open, relaxed shoulders joined the body and mind. He believed that this improved thought quality and confidence.
Standing tall, relaxing your shoulders, and lifting your chin slightly sends signals of safety and confidence to your nervous system. Small physical shifts can create immediate emotional changes and pretty soon, you’ll start to believe it yourself.
Building Body Confidence Through Support
For many people, self-love is hard to cultivate alone especially after years of dieting or self-criticism.
This is why supportive environments matter so much. In my group weight-loss programs, I see people borrow belief from others in the group until they’re able to hold it for themselves. Over time, confidence grows not just in their body, but in their ability to care for it.
If you’re exploring intermittent fasting weight loss in Toronto and feel that guidance and community could help you shift from self-criticism to self-trust, you’re welcome to book an assessment call to learn more.
Self-love isn’t something you wait for after weight loss. It’s the foundation that makes lasting health possible.