We’re approaching that time. The time when we scroll through our social media to be bombarded with what seems like an endless amount of posts and adverts from people trying to get ‘bikini body ready’ because its only 3 months till Summer.
We’re told that all it takes is a little hard work following set guidelines and we’ll be ready to lounge around on a towel, burying our feet in the sand.
Yet why are we made to feel like, if we don’t follow these guidelines, we’ll be forced to bury our heads in the sand and not our feet?
God forbid we spend the next 3 months living, breathing and eating whatever we want and THEN still put on a bikini.
It’s so easy to get sucked in by the diet industry (no pun intended). For years I bought into it too. Quite literally! I spent a ridiculous amount of money that I didn’t have on diet pills, memberships and food I didn’t even like. I tried every crash diet anyone had to offer, that claimed they would help me shed the weight (and fast) until I was perfectly slim and toned. Every diet I was on made me feel like a failure. I was a failure for letting myself get to the point where I ‘needed’ to be on a diet. I was a failure because I couldn’t stick to the guidelines.
When it finally got to Summer, I never looked any different and I would yet again feel like a failure. I had my chance, I blew it. Now, I was going to have to have to suffer the consequences and sit around the pool or on the beach in front of others.
I dreaded it.
I would cry.
I wouldn’t want to go. (I’d have honestly rather stayed at home.)
I was miserable.
When I went on holiday I’d put sun cream on in the bathroom and lock the door, so no one would be able to see my belly fold over when I did my legs. I’d wear kimonos on the sun bed and when I thought no one was looking that’s when I’d take it off and get into the pool as quick as I could. Or, I wouldn’t get in and I’d just let myself sweat but that was never a great option because I had concealer on to cover my spots.
We are all being sold the idea of what it is to be the ‘perfect’ woman and what the ‘ideal’ body type looks like. But if trying to achieve what society and diet cultures perceive to be the epitome of the ‘ideal’ body makes you miserable, guilt ridden and ashamed of who you are – is it really ideal?
I’m a size 16. I’m not slim or toned. My thighs, my belly and my arms all jiggle like jelly. But I am happy. I’m no longer making myself miserable by following absurd routines. The last holiday I went on, was the first where I allowed myself to wear what I want because I liked the pattern, the colour or the way it made me feel. Rather than choosing something that had black downward stripes because ‘it’s slimming’. It was the first holiday where I chose not to bury my head in the sand. It was the most freeing and fun holiday I have been on since I was a child.
Summer will come and go just as every other season does. So take that bikini body diet plan and throw it in the bin, along with your bathroom scales, because no matter what shape or size you are – YOU ARE ALREADY BIKINI BODY READY.
PUT ON A BIKINI. GO OUTSIDE. HAVE FUN.