In challenging times, struggles with body image can intensify quickly. Having practical strategies to navigate a bad body image day helps you interrupt those negative thoughts and reclaim the power you give your body. Below you’ll find key takeaways, an overview of Brianna Campos’s approach, episode highlights, quotes, and a full transcript of the conversation on how to stop a bad body image day in its tracks.
Listen on your preferred platform: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher
Key Takeaways
How to stop a bad body image day:
- Notice and name the gremlin dialogue—the critical self-talk—and ask why you accept diet culture’s stories about your body.
- Understand body positivity as a social justice issue and practice inclusivity for all bodies.
- Allow space for grief about what society celebrates; lean into the emotions rather than avoiding them.
- Give yourself permission to listen to your body and choose what feels right for you in the present moment.
Body Image With Bri Campos
Brianna Campos (Body Image with Bri) is a mental health counselor, therapist, and body image coach. She guides people through their body image journeys, helping them heal their relationship with their bodies by addressing internalized beliefs and cultural pressures.
Getting Over Your Gremlin Thoughts
Bri frames critical self-talk as the “gremlin voice.” These thoughts are often messy and hidden under the narratives diet culture teaches us. The first step is to acknowledge that inner dialogue, ask whether those thoughts align with your core values, and create space for grief. By auditing thoughts and focusing on values-driven self-talk, you can choose a kinder and more authentic relationship with your body.
Healing Your Body Image Relationships
Body image extends beyond appearance. It includes how you believe others view you, how structural privilege affects access and treatment, and how diet culture shapes behavior. Healing begins when you question the stories you tell yourself and allow grief and acceptance to coexist. Dismantling harmful self-treatment takes time, but it’s essential for moving through bad body image days with more grace.
How will you give yourself permission to be where you are this holiday season? Share which of Bri’s strategies you’ll try next time a gremlin thought shows up.
In This Episode
- How to stop a bad body image day by acknowledging your gremlin thoughts (9:56)
- Why body positivity is a social justice movement (11:46)
- Acknowledging harms of diet culture and weight cycling (24:12)
- Allowing space to truly feel grief (28:54)
- Navigating the holidays and pandemic-related stress when body image is fragile (34:40)
Quotes
“People look to me not because I am perfect, but because I am vulnerable and I am honest.” (9:51)
“Body image is not just how you look. Body image is also how you believe others view you, how those belief systems have you show up in the world. And there is a piece of body positivity in society of how accessible life is for you in your body.” (12:31)
“I never believed that I could love my body until it looked the way I wanted it to. And it’s five years later, and I love my body. I don’t always love the way it looks or the way it moves, but I love my body, I love the vessel that it is and how it brings me closer to the values of connection and relationship and bringing good to the world.” (26:13)
“Grief is sort of like a tidal wave. If you resist it, it persists. It pulls you deeper and deeper. As opposed to if you just ride out with it, eventually, it puts you back onshore. Because that is what emotions do, we don’t stay in one place forever.” (31:50)
“I am going to honor my body, and this is how I am going to choose to love myself this holiday season.” (37:05)
Resources Mentioned
Body Grievers Group Coaching
Body Image Supervision Cohort
Follow Body Image With Bri on Instagram
Unpacking the Knapsack of Privilege (recommended reading)
Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest
If you enjoyed the episode, consider leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice.
Related Episodes
LTYB 302: Finding Joy & Acceptance in Fitness for Every Body with Kanoa Greene
LTYB 183: Dealing with Negative Body Image with Beauty Redefined
Transcript: How To Stop a Bad Body Image Day in Its Tracks w/ Brianna Campos
Steph Gaudreau
How can you stop a bad body image day in its tracks? We’re going to be talking about this and more on this episode of the Listen To Your Body podcast with my special guest Bri Campos. Welcome to the Listen To Your Body podcast, where we explore body, mind, and soul health to help you reclaim intuitive ways of eating and moving. I’m Steph Gaudreau, a certified intuitive eating counselor, nutritional therapy practitioner, and strength coach. Expect expert interviews and solo chats that help you deepen trust with food, movement, and your body. Now on to the show.
Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Today we’re talking about body image during a year that has amplified many struggles. Bri Campos—Body Image with Bri on Instagram—is a therapist and body image coach here to discuss what to do when a bad body image day strikes, how to understand it, and a crucial but often unspoken element in healing your relationship with your body.
Brianna Campos
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Steph Gaudreau
Your work is necessary and powerful. Tell us a bit about how you approach body image.
Brianna Campos
One influential idea I use comes from Brené Brown: calling the critical voice a gremlin voice. Naming it helps separate your true voice from the gremlin’s. Gremlin thoughts change their angle over time, but the practice of acknowledging them and asking whether they align with your values is freeing. People often follow someone not for their perfection but for authenticity and vulnerability, and that’s the value I try to live into and help others access.
Women’s Body Image
Steph Gaudreau
This year has been particularly hard for body image. In your community, have you noticed people comparing themselves to earlier, more able versions of themselves?
Brianna Campos
Absolutely. Beyond external comparison, many are struggling with motivation, basic self-care, and emotional exhaustion. That makes body image challenges deeper and more complex, even for those whose work centers on body image.
Shine a Light on Your Gremlins
Steph Gaudreau
How do you work with your own gremlin moments?
Brianna Campos
I acknowledge the gremlin, name the thought, and ask if it brings me closer to my values—connection, honesty, authenticity. Catching gremlin thoughts early prevents them from taking over an entire day.
Body Positivity is a Social Justice Issue
Steph Gaudreau
You describe body positivity as a social justice movement. Can you unpack that?
Brianna Campos
Body image includes how accessible life is for someone in their body. Privilege matters: being in a thinner body often means society makes life easier. Body positivity at its core is about dignity and inclusion for all bodies. You can’t claim body positivity while shaming or excluding other bodies. If you’re learning this for the first time, there’s room to grow—this work is about aligning words with actions and interrogating the stories you tell yourself.
Body Image in Sports
Steph Gaudreau
It’s complicated, because people seek solutions in diet culture despite its harms.
Brianna Campos
Diet culture often sells short-term praise that obscures long-term harm. Weight cycling in particular can be damaging. Part of healing is grieving what society celebrates and recognizing that loving your body isn’t conditional on meeting aesthetic standards.
Identify Your Privileges
Steph Gaudreau
Listening to lived experience is crucial. How do you invite people into that conversation?
Brianna Campos
Start by learning and listening. Helpful resources explain how privilege operates in everyday life. Recognize how systems advantage some bodies and disadvantage others—this context clarifies why body autonomy and compassion matter.
Stop Weight Cycling
Steph Gaudreau
Many people swing back and forth with dieting, which erodes confidence and health.
Brianna Campos
Yes. Rather than pushing quick fixes, we need nuanced approaches that consider long-term well-being and emotional healing. That requires grief, patience, and community support.
Women Athlete Body Image
Steph Gaudreau
Is toxic positivity an obstacle?
Brianna Campos
Absolutely. Sometimes it just sucks, and people need permission to feel that. I work with the idea of body grief, creating space for complex emotions until they naturally shift. If a thought doesn’t align with your values, reparent yourself: what would you say to someone you love? Use that compassion for yourself.
Community Can Help You Through Difficult Emotions
Steph Gaudreau
People fear staying in grief—how can community help?
Brianna Campos
Community provides a raft when you feel swept away by emotion. When others hold space for you, grief becomes less foreign and more navigable. Over time, the tidal wave becomes familiar and less terrifying.
Give Yourself Permission
Steph Gaudreau
With holidays approaching and added stress, what practical advice can you offer?
Brianna Campos
Write permission slips instead of rigid resolutions. Give yourself permission to feel sad about your body, to take breaks from formal movement, to listen to hunger and fullness, and to set boundaries at gatherings. You can sign your own permission slip—nobody else knows your lived experience. Decide how you will honor your body and choose self-care that aligns with your values over societal expectations.
Steph Gaudreau
That’s a wonderful, empowering approach—permission slips are a practical tool anyone can use.
Where to Connect with Bri
Brianna Campos
I created offerings born from my own experience: a Body Grievers Group for people who feel stuck between rejecting diets and not yet feeling body positive, and a Body Image Supervision Cohort for professionals needing practical tools to support clients. These communities normalize grief, expose gremlins to the light, and replace shame with empathy. If you want connection and tools, these are designed to meet you where you are.
Steph Gaudreau
Thank you, Bri. This conversation has been rich and necessary. For show notes, transcripts, and information about the Tune In Membership, visit Steph Gaudreau’s website. If you’re ready to move away from diet culture and find peace with food and your body, consider joining a supportive community that meets you where you are.
Until next time, be well.