The three rules of body confidence

So many things have inspired me into writing this, most of which are people around me constantly saying, “I wish I had your confidence!” or, “You have so much body confidence, how do you do it?!”. But most of all, my lovely friend Daisy had written a post on her Slimming World experience, how it suited her and how she learned to be happy with her body in the process. Which is brilliant and I’m so proud of her!

However, dieting has never and will never be my jam, let alone the gym (trust me, I’ve tried).

As much as I can appreciate the fact that eating well and exercising daily has been scientifically proven to improve low mood and self-esteem, I feel much happier cozied up in my bed thinking about how good ordering a Chinese takeaway feels whilst watching repeats of Supersize vs Superskinny.

So how have I become a person who has learnt to accept and love body exactly as it is without becoming a gym-addict and constantly glued to calorie-counters? Well. It’s a long story, but I’ll try and cut it short.

In my early teen years my perspective on my body was never something that crossed my mind. My body got me from A to B and allowed bodily functions to commence. So, I guess that’s all I thought it was there to do. I realise now this is a great way to think lol because let’s be honest. THAT IS ALL IT’S THERE FOR.

However, as I approached the age of 15/16. I started dance classes at school at GCSE level, which understandably made me lose a lot of weight but gain muscle. I began noticing my body changing and I LOVED it, not realising I had loved my body previously too.

This became a slight obsession: exercising morning, night, calorie counters, still doing dance, throwing away my packed lunch my mum made for me at school, you name it. But. Was I happy? No. Why?

For me personally, anything that requires effort, time, mental space, money and negativity as motivation is a no-go. But I kept doing it as I believed it was the right thing to do, pushing myself to be ‘happy’ because if I was skinny then OBVIOUSLY I’d be happy. Right? Wrong.

A couple of years ago I took a step back and thought to myself that I really need to retrace my steps and figure out where this negative mindset of mine had come from as I knew as it was never an issue in the past. I was such a confident and sprightly young teenager, full of self-esteem and life about me. I had just turned into this little lump of negativity, constantly worrying about being/becoming fat and comparing myself to others.

What I realised, in time, is that my gradual loss of confidence and self-esteem wasn’t down to my body size at all. It was down to the media pressure that if you have low self esteem? LOSE WEIGHT, if you have a bad mood? EXERCISE, if you feel bloated? EAT SALAD, if you’re a size 14? GET SPANX.

But, let’s be honest, if you’re unhappy with your body and attempt to abide by societies standards of how gal’s bodies should look and you’re still unhappy, to me that’s got nothing to do with your body. It’s to do with your BRAIN.

So that was it. I made myself a few new rules to abide by:

Do what makes you happy.
Think of 3 positive things about yourself everyday that doesn’t involve your appearance.
Order a kebab, you deserve it.

And you know what, I’m happy. I’m happy in myself, in my body, in my brain and it’s bloody BRILLIANT. Because for the first time I was living my life exactly how I like to live it, not revolving it around my sack of organs.

I haven’t put on weight from it, and I haven’t lost weight either I’m just, me! And even if I do fluctuate from time to time as everybody does, it’s now just an annoyance to spend money on new clothes rather than having to buy bigger/smaller sizes, because mate, what a stupid thing to worry about.

So, no matter who you are and what bloody size you are, if you’re happy, keep doing what you’re doing! It really is that simple. And if you’re not happy, do what you know personally makes you happy and stick at it.

But genuinely, you just do you pals.

Written by Sarah.