From Punishment to Self-Care: The Catholic Way to a Healthy Body Image​ (Trending with Timmerie)

Timmerie chats with fitness expert Sal Di Stefano about a big idea:

👉 We’ve been sold a lie — that we’re never enough. Not skinny enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough. This lie is fueling body dysmorphia, comparison, and even deeper gender confusion.

Timmerie & Sal unpack how women especially are hit hard by this. Social media floods people with filtered, edited, unrealistic bodies, and it’s easy to absorb it like, “Ugh, why don’t I look like that?” But guess what? Even the gym is full of “normal” people — those six-pack abs you see online? Sal says they’re SUPER rare in real life.


💥 Sal’s antidote is to shift the focus from punishment to care.

Instead of:
❌ “I hate my body, so I’m going to punish myself at the gym.”
❌ “I can’t eat that — I’m on a diet.”

He says:
✅ Focus on strength and performance.
✅ Move and eat like someone you care about.
✅ Exercise as self-care, not self-punishment.

When you come from a place of love, you build habits you actually want to keep.
When you come from self-hate, you rebel hard — binge eating, quitting workouts, or spiraling into more comparison.


Sal also gets super practical:

📱 Fix your social media algorithm. Stop liking, commenting, or even hovering over “perfect” body content. The algorithm thinks that’s what you want — so teach it to feed you more life-giving stuff!

🍽 Avoid over-processed foods. Treat your body like a temple, not a trash bin.

💬 And when it comes to your inner dialogue, watch how you talk to yourself! Don’t feed the “never enough” monster.


Sal’s Spiritual parallel: Just like you can’t live like the world and expect spiritual health, you can’t live on the world’s default setting and expect physical health. Holiness + health = intentional living.


Timmerie wraps it all up with the reminder: we need to have these honest conversations — about media, about fitness, about worth. Because without them, we stay trapped in a cycle of comparison, disassociation, and despair.


BONUS HOPE STORY: Timmerie mentions Oli London, who had over 100 plastic surgeries chasing an impossible image, even planning to transition genders — but walking into a Catholic church saved his life and soul. God’s mercy is bigger than our biggest self-image crisis. 💛


TL;DR:
💪 Care for your body like it’s loved.
🙅‍♀️ Break up with comparison.
🛐 Lean into God’s truth over the world’s lies.

You got this, friend.


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Jake Moore serves as a Digital Audio Content Producer for Relevant Radio®. He is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, and is passionate about classic movies, Christian music, young adult ministry, and leading this generation to Christ through compelling media. You can listen to more of his podcasts at relevantradio.com and on the Relevant Radio® app.