It’s a contradiction don’t you think? The title of why I don’t feel body confident and then the photo below of me posing. These photos were taken during our stay in Morocco, in the beautiful Hotel Riu Palace Tikida Agadir and looking at this photo, I appear confident.
I found it difficult to write this post because I didn’t know what angle to write this from, I just know that I wanted to write about it. Body confidence is something that has always been feed to me and to others in the media growing up. Whether it’s on the covers of magazines or passed down to us by friends or family members, it’s what our society thrives on. Whether it comes from a place of good or bad.
Growing up, I had the best metabolism going, I could eat a shit ton of food and I’d often get asked, where does it go? Well, that’s the absolute luxury of being a kid.
But for me, going to university changed everything. I ate a serious amount of junk food, I binge drank on a weekly – who am I kidding – daily basis and before I knew it, I’d piled on a few pounds. I remember my mum seeing that change for the first time. It shocked her and she expressed this concern verbally. That’s the first time that I lost my body confidence.
Now by no means is it my mum’s fault. In fact, I think that it came from a place of love and unfortunately, no one else could have really told me that because it would have hurt my feelings. And let’s be honest, I was surrounded by students all in the same boat. Suddenly I was very conscious of my body. Before, I never looked at myself and thought about my body. For me, I was super slim, was regularly active in sports at school and I was by no means the person I am today.
Since leaving university, I managed to lose quite a bit of weight through discovering the gym. I grew stronger, my body was firmer and I felt confident. Body confident. That was until blogging started and I lost more free time during my mornings and evenings. Every spare moment I have goes into my blogging and that, unfortunately, meant no more gym time.
I’m probably the heaviest I’ve ever been now. I’ve been desperate to get some new jeans but I don’t want to because I know I need a size 14 and I have never been a size 14. We’re told to love our bodies and to learn to love those bits we’re not so keen on but on the other side of the coin, it’s the complete opposite. We’re hounded in print and online to look a certain way and that living outside of these boundaries doesn’t get fair enough representation.
Could I change this viewpoint for me over time? Of course, I’m not a sheep. I don’t like being told that I can’t do something because I can if I put my mind to it. I may not be body confident now but being in your mid-twenties is stressful. You’re finding yourself as an adult like everyone else is.
So the point of this blog post? I guess I don’t really have one. I think that body confidence is something we can only find ourselves. I also think just because someone doesn’t like your body, doesn’t mean you have to change because of it.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
