Body image rewritten with Georgie Thomas

Meet
September 12, 2022

If the mean girl inside your head has ever whispered in your ear that you’re not good enough, has ever taken a second look at a dimple on your thigh or a pesky upper arm wobble; if she’s ever questioned your worth based on the reflection staring back at you from the mirror…then body positivity powerhouse Georgie Thomas is here to shut that sh*t down.

After living and breathing the diet culture industry, Georgie, the founder of Body Image Rewritten used her own struggles with body image as inspiration to start her own business helping others facing similar struggles. Bringing a realness to the social media scene by being her authentic self, Georgie breaks down the diet culture world, using her background in exercise physiology to help people rewrite their mindset and step into the most empowered, self confident version of themselves.

Can we get a “HECK YEAH!”?

We chat with Georgie about how pregnancy and motherhood has impacted her own mindset—her son Harry was born in June this year—the importance of accepting our bodies just the way they are…and how to get there.

Congratulations on the birth of your gorgeous son Harry! How is life in your baby bubble?

Thank you so much! I still can’t believe I’m a mum! Life in our baby bubble has been amazing. We have been surrounded by friends and family and taking things very slow, just going at our own pace. I’ve never slowed down this much and been so present before. Even though we are going slow, time seems to be moving so fast!

What has surprised you most about motherhood that you weren’t expecting?

I never used to be a maternal person and I never knew how I would be with a baby but the love explosion you experience as soon as they are here and sit on your chest the first time is wild. I never thought I could be so obsessed with a little human but I am and it’s a love you can’t explain. I would also have to say how incredible the female body is… it really has blown my mind just how it’s grown this little human, then birthed it, then produced milk to feed them and all while recovering. It has made me even more grateful for my body.

You are such an incredible inspiration for body positivity. How has this journey been through your pregnancy/postpartum?

All I can say is thank god I worked on my body image struggles before I fell pregnant! There was a time back in the day that I didn’t want to go through pregnancy because I didn’t want to lose control of my body, put weight on and then go through the process of trying to bounce back after. I honestly can’t believe I used to think like that but that’s how much it took over my life. I’m so glad I worked past it because I have had the most beautiful experience during pregnancy and postpartum. I’ve been in awe of what it’s doing as I was growing him, I trusted my body knew what it was doing. When I grew stretch marks I didn’t think twice about them because I now believe stretch marks are normal and a beautiful part of growing a human.

During postpartum I have been so chilled as well. The old me would have been on a diet day one, exercising before I was allowed to, stressing and completely focused on my body rather than Harry. Whereas now, I haven’t thought twice about it, I’m still amazed at what my body is doing. Instead of freaking out about my clothes fitting me I just treated myself to some new clothes that made me feel good. I haven’t put any pressure on myself to exercise and I’m more intuitive about my eating now than ever before and don’t feel any guilt around it.

Do you think we’re getting to a point where society is steering away from the pressure on women to have a speedy postpartum bounce-back or do you think we still have a long way to go?

This is a great question, I think we are more aware of it but I still think we have a long way to go. Going through it myself now, I can see how much pressure we put on ourselves as well as the pressures from social media and diet culture. I have been in two minds about what I post during the fourth trimester because I genuinely have felt confused about it. I see so many women posting “here’s my body 2 weeks postpartum” and although they obviously seem so proud of their body which is great for them—and we should never judge that—I can see how dangerous that is for other mums. I just don’t think the fourth trimester should be about what your body is doing and how much it has changed. The old me would have been triggered by seeing content like that as I would have compared and put pressure on myself to bounce back. It’s why I think the focus needs to be on taking things slow, nourishing yourself and your baby, being offline, figuring out how the hell to look after this new human and making sure mentally you are all doing ok.

To help with this I think it’s important to know if content like that is going to trigger you and get on the front foot by removing those people from your feed before giving birth. It’s not up to other people to stop posting content they want to, it’s up to us to figure out what content we want to see and control our own environment.

You shifted your body-image mindset over the years, including your ideas about falling pregnant and what it can do to your body. Can you tell us about this process?

I reached a point where I was more scared to keep going the way I was than to actually do the work to get out of it. I was battling with the thoughts of “I know this isn’t right and I know my body shouldn’t be controlling my life” with “but I want to be skinny and will I hate myself more and is it even possible to like who I am?”. It’s a battle but I didn’t want to be a mum and still hate myself, life is too short.

I had to do a lot of work on my mindset. I got out of my job in diet culture and removed myself from that environment. I did a Neuro Linguistic Course and found the causes of where all my body image struggles came from and worked through them and rewrote my mindset. I then became a Neuro Linguistic practitioner myself because it helped so much. After I worked on my relationship with my body I then worked on my relationship with food and learned intuitive eating which was also game changing as food controlled my life for a long time.

As soon as you learn how your mind works and why you think the way you currently do, you can start to change that and change the narratives you want to believe. It’s how I could prepare myself for pregnancy and choose my stories around how I wanted to go through it.

How did you pull those “diet culture beer goggles” off, and what do you wish you could go back and tell yourself when you were obsessing over the numbers?

You really have to go cold turkey and pull the Band-Aid off. It’s the scariest thing ever but with the right support around you it’s the best way to go, and when you realise you can do it, it’s the most empowering thing you will ever go through. Start first with mending your relationship with your body, then focus on mending your relationship with food after that. Be patient with yourself and know it takes time, it took me around 2 years to really get my confidence back.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and slap myself if I’m honest. I used to get so mad thinking of my older self and how much time I wasted and how many events and moments in life I missed because of my body image struggles. I wish I could have told myself back then that I deserved to be loved just as I am and I didn’t have to change for anyone as I have so much more to offer the world than my body.

This year you launched an app, Rewritten Mindfulness. Can you tell us about it and how it can help women?

Yes I did! I still can’t believe I have an app! The Rewritten App is the best place to start if you are wanting to change your mindset. It is full of mindfulness sessions that you can do each day varying from 5-20 minutes. Whether you’re struggling with body image, confidence, negative emotions, or maybe you need a pump up on the way to work, I have a session to help you. This is the start to rewriting your mindset, changing your belief system and triggering a new voice to take over.

Everything I teach is based on what helped me rewrite my mindset and turn my life around so I know how much of an impact it has.

Can you give us your top reminders for women struggling with body image generally and in particular after having a baby?

First of all, know you are so much more than your body. The RIGHT people will love you for exactly who you are, you should never have to change to please others.

Secondly, trust yourself and your body. The human body is the most insane thing on the planet and it knows exactly what it’s doing. We need to look after it and by looking after it I don’t mean going on a restrictive diet and depleting it. When we nourish it, remove stress, have a good mindset and trust it, it will look after us. There is so much more to the world than how we look and I truly do believe that confidence is way sexier than trying to be “skinny”.

For a 7 day free trial of The Rewritten Mindfulness App