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My girlfriend lifts but suffers from almost chronic body dysmorphia. She thinks she looks "fat and gross" in this photo. Anybody got any advice on how she can improve body confidence and self-esteem? External validation doesn't seem to be working.
As others have said, many, if not most, bodybuilders suffer from body dysmorphia. I recently saw a clip where Sherry Priami laughed about it. She said she was very pleased with the initial results she got from weight training, but the better she got, the more displeased she was with her body. Despite her incredible physique, she's still displeased with it, focusing only on the areas where she's fallen short. On a conscious level, she knows that's a silly attitude. She knows dysmorphia is illogical, but nobody can really control her or his subconscious.
Your best bet is to tell your GF that her feeling are completely normal, but she should do her best to ignore them. Consistent positive reinforcement from you and others should help. And, BTW, she does look fantastic.
Thanks for the comments, guys. My gf knows everything about my preference for muscular women and it's part of the reason she lifts because she knows I like it. She is very confident sexually but can be heavily preoccupied with the way she looks to the point where it overwhelms her. She has suffered with anorexia in the past and still seems to have a similar struggle with her body image.
I am constantly saying how amazing she looks and trying to reinforce this. She definitely isn't short of compliments from myself, friends and random people on the street or in the gym. She has recently started going to therapy to hopefully help with her self-esteem and anxieties.
My wife (we've been together since we were in highschool) always had an athletic body because she did a lot of sports in highschool and she always told me how easy was to gain muscle for her. Although she wasn't really muscular, she was the reason why I understood that I find muscles on a girl hot. Time ago she found out that I liked muscular girls and she didn't take it well. She said she would never want to look like that and that it was weird that I liked that kind of stuff.
In recent years she changed her mindset towards being athletic and fit, mostly for health reasons, but I believe she doesn't mind the muscular look now that is considered hot (compared to years ago). Plus I think she wants to be attractive for me because I guess you can consider me an attractive man (although not very muscular, even though I am working on it).
She started going to the gym and in a short time she is gaining noticeable muscles. She doesn't use steroids (I can only wish she'll think about it in the future) and we are parents of small children, so she can't fully commit on working out yet, but in my opinion it's already going great. I love seeing her bicep bulging out Everytime she uses her arms, her pecs are popping more and more (which makes me go crazy happy) and back and forearms are just indicative of how much potential she has. Legs are very hot too, but I am an upper body lover. I really believe she has amazing genetics for muscle building and I am SO excited to see what's going to happen in the future. I am just very grateful for this change she just started in her life.
She could crush diamonds with those forearms :)
How much does she know about your "fetish" or preference of muscular bodies? How far do you guys go intimately? For my partner what she has told me herself, is that getting to know me has improved her body dysmorphia.
She still has her days but more and more now sees herself hot and sexy vs before where she seldomly would. She has told me that due to how much I admire her for her hard work and also how much I enjoy her muscles and get excited by them. She fully knows how much I like this and everything around it.