How To Stop Obsessing Over My Body

What can we do when our thoughts are overwhelmingly centered on our bodies?

Do you wake up in the morning, open your eyes and think, what will I eat today? What workout do I have to do? 

Are you feeling guilty over yesterday’s food and exercise choices? Does the obsession over your body follow you like a nagging child (or maybe a screaming one) all day long?

Do you want to stop the flood of obsessive thoughts keeping you in a state of “I’m never good enough” or “ I need to do more…less..change…fix”? If so, then the never ending cycle of body obsession has you captive.

The exhaustion is real. Your mind, your time, your energy are so consumed by your obsessive body thoughts, you barely have the mental capacity for anything else.

You are not alone. There is hope! These obsessive thoughts don’t have to rule you.

When Body Obsession is Really Idolatry

What happens when we ask ourselves…

If your answer to any of these is anything other than Jesus (like a better body) you probably have an idol on your hands. 

Shocking right!? It was for me. Idols were those gold statues from the Old Testament that people were crazy enough to worship. I believed I could never have an idol problem, I worship God. And I do. But He was not my answer to those questions. 

It was shocking for me to realize that the way to stop obsessing over my body was recognizing I had made it an idol.

Those questions hit me hard, I was worshiping culture’s definition of a healthy, ideal (i.e. thin) body as a means to my ultimate happiness.

We can make idols out of anything. It can be either a good thing or a bad thing that’s been elevated to the level of God.

1 John 5:21 warns us, “Dear Children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” (NLT) This is referring to idols.

Romans 1:25 further warns us, “They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” (NLT) (emphasis mine) 

We can make idols out of anything. So if your mind is obsessing over your body constantly, it’s time to get honest with yourself.

If your main source of comfort is something other than God or if you’re allowing your self-worth to be dependent on something other than God….your body obsession has become an idol.

Does Desire for a Better Body and Health mean Idolatry?

Diet Culture would have us believe that if we just find the right “plan” to fit our body, then the obsessive body thoughts would stop. This is just another lie.

Here’s the thing – idolatry is deceptive. It can sneak its way into our lives because it often starts out with something good or something positive –  like wanting to be healthy or wanting to take care of your body, even wanting to honor God with your body.

But, somewhere a shift happens. Our good intentions turn into body obsession, food obsession, exercise obsession. We become consumed by thoughts and the positive desires become a slave master driving us.

We have to ask ourselves… has our body obsession, our all consuming thoughts around our physical appearance, become our ultimate source for satisfaction? 

Yes, I know, ouch it hurts! 

Here’s a tough question that cut me to the core…

If you have to choose between your workout and your quiet time with God, what are you choosing? 

The realization of my answer hit me hard, but the repentance brought much freedom.

Don’t fall into this trap though, caring for our bodies is not idolatry. Obsessing over your body to the point that it consumes so much of your thinking is. 

It’s about our motives and intentions. We each have to search our own hearts. Exercise, moving our bodies, feeding ourselves, can all be good acts of worship towards God.

It is about what is in our hearts.  

Matthew 6:24 reminds us where our treasure is, that is where our heart is “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” (NLT)

And you cannot be slaves of God, diet culture, body image, beauty and health.

So what happens when we realize our body obsessions have become an idol?

3 things can happen when we realize our body obsession has become an idol:

1: We can get defensive of our idols. 

This is hard heart work, it can be raw and painful and our protective instincts tell us “but this is healthy!” We try to have both Jesus AND our idol. 

2: We promise ourselves we can love both, keep Jesus first, and control, fix and change our bodies…but Matthew 6:24 tells us otherwise.

3:  We get real, we get honest, we see the pain of our body obsessions and we change.

But how? 

After we do the hard work of being honest with ourselves, recognizing the way we have elevated our bodies and realizing that striving for better has become an all consuming body obsession, what’s next?

How does knowing we have made our body an idol help us to stop obsessing over our bodies? 

We get honest with God, we bring our brokenness before Him and repent. But our hearts are prone to wander and so the body obsession, with its deep roots in diet culture, will creep back into our hearts and minds. 

It’s a daily surrender, many of us have been immersed in diet culture for decades, and so we are unlearning everything we believed about food, exercise and how to take care of our bodies. 

So daily we must search our hearts and be open enough to feel the Holy Spirit’s conviction when it comes, and then we can catch ourselves, repent and return to Him.

It can be a beautiful dance: recognizing our sin, giving it to the Lord, and trusting Him to change us.

There is no shame or condemnation (Romans 8:1). Diet culture and the enemy would have us believe there’s something wrong with us that we have to keep coming back to this every day. But God says: just choose me, keep me first daily.

Our culture says we need to change and it’s all up to us. 

We need to work harder, we need to press harder to let go of diet culture. But Christ, in His grace and gentleness, knows the culture we live in. He knows all of the lies that we have learned which have to be unlearned. He says just repent and surrender this to me. Choose to turn away. Stay in my word and it will transform your mind and I will renew your heart.

 As Romans 12:2 says “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (NLT)

We get to choose to put Christ first everyday.

We get to choose what thoughts we believe. When our minds begin to fall back into obsessive body thoughts, we can choose to place God and His word first.

Ask yourself, “what do I really want from all this body obsession, what am I truly seeking to gain from it all?” 

For me, it was ultimately love and acceptance, belonging and confidence in my identity. You can never get those things from the world. Only God can give us that.

So chasing after an idol is futile. It will never bring satisfaction because it’s incapable of providing it.

Ending the torment of body obsession

Let’s bring our body obsession to the foot of the cross. This is a daily surrender of searching our hearts, getting honest and repenting. Then it’s receiving our ultimate source of satisfaction, the great love of the Father.

Whatever your answer was to why you have painstakingly obsessed over your body, take it to God’s word. 

Whether it’s love, acceptance, freedom from shame…. seek His word and discover His truths. The more time we spend discovering the truths of God, the less we will believe the lies of the enemy and diet culture. 

Remember Romans 1:25 warning, don’t replace God’s truth for a lie. 

Galatians 4:8-9 is a beautiful reminder, “Before you knew God you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God (or should I say God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?” (NLT)

Let go of body obsession, friends. Surrender it to the God who knows you, who loves you. Remember His truths of who you are and whose you are. 

Don’t remain slaves to the useless principles of the world, of diet culture and the enemy. Don’t worship the created things, but rather the Creator of all things.

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