Being Beach Body Ready

If there's one term I can't stand it's 'beach body ready'. 

It's toxic, it's destructive and it's just totally negative, implying that you have to look a certain way to be allowed on a beach. 

Growing up, I went on more 'diets' than I can remember, always striving for that perfect 'beach body' and always thinking of myself as a failure because I could never quite get there. All I wanted, more than anything else, was to be skinny. It was the only ambition I had for a long time, and tt makes me sad when I look back on my teenage years and see how much time I wasted hating myself and depriving myself of food I loved to try and make myself look a certain way. 

"Recently, I had a pretty nasty photo made of me 

and circulated around the town I live in by people 

I believed were my friends, making fun of my boobs"

Of course now, quite a few years later, my stance on self love and body image is totally different. I've spent the last couple of years learning about body positivity and self love and then using this knowledge to help me to love and embrace myself. It's been such a tough journey, but so rewarding too - I am more confident than I have ever been in my life, and I am so comfortable in my own skin that I just know 16 year old me wouldn't even believe it. 

It helps a lot that we're starting to see a bit more diversity in mainstream media now. When I was growing up, most of the mainstream celebrities I could relate to looked the same - small, skinny women with big boobs and bums who ate salad every day and looked incredible at all times. Now, I think young people are lucky because they have a far more diverse range of people to look up to - personally, I really look up to Grace Victory, Megan Crabbe (Body Posi Panda) and The Slumflower.


All of them have helped me to embrace myself and love myself exactly as I am. Megan Crabbe changed my relationship with food and how I thought about eating and food in relation to my body and mental health. Grace taught me how to fall back in love with fashion and to challenge societal standards of 'perfect' so that I can still dress like a badass babe and feel like a total Queen, even if I'm not a size 6. She also taught me how to exercise to be healthy and feel good, not just for the purpose of losing weight - which totally changed my perspective on it all. And lastly, The Slumflower, a woman who created an incredible movement; the #SaggyBoobsMatter movement. I have been teased and bullied and criticised for years over my boobs because they aren't big and perky 24/7 - sometimes I choose not to wear a bra and they look saggy (dun dun duuuun!)


All three of these women have helped me to change my life drastically. Now, at 22 years old, I feel the best I have ever felt in my life. I don't resent food, or feel guilty for eating pizza three nights in a row. I exercise if and when I want to, purely to feel good and better my health. I embrace my cellulite, my little poochy belly, my 'saggy' boobs, my chubby cheeks and the eye that squints when I smile. All these features make me, me - and I'm pretty damn great. 

I'm not saying it's always easy, because it's not. Recently, I had a pretty nasty photo made of me and circulated around the town I live in by people I believed were my friends, making fun of my boobs. Often, I have nasty comments made about my shape or size. Sometimes, I simply have to battle with myself and my own mind. But I always overcome it, and in the end it's always worth it.

"Being beach body ready doesn't mean 

being a size zero with a six pack anymore"

This year, for the first time in my life, I will be heading to a beach in a skimpy bikini feeling 'beach body ready' without perhaps fitting into societies idea of being beach body ready. I'm curvy - my hips are bigger than my motivation to get through the week on a Monday morning lol - my arse is sizeable and my boobs are so big that sometimes I find myself physically moving them around so I can get comfy. LOL. Such is life of a curvy girl. 

Because of my curves, I'll never be a size 6 - even if I had the flattest tummy, my bum and hips would not allow it! But do you know something? I don't want to be a size 6. Or even a size 8. I'm happy being me, somewhere between a size 12 and a size 16. I could never maintain being skinny - I love and enjoy food far too much and exercise not enough! And now, mentally, I'm at a place where I don't really care about being skinny either. I love how I look, my boyfriend loves how I look and I am here, able to fully embrace everything about myself. 


Self love is important. Embracing your wobbly bits? Just as important. 


Being beach body ready doesn't mean being a size zero with a six pack anymore. It means loving every inch of yourself, throwing on a bomb ass bikini and heading to the beach to live your very best life.

Love from,
Florence Grace

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