Suit Urself: The Beach Body Tutorial

Alright dolls, I hope you’re ready to take notes! Last week during our weekly body image post, we covered how to shatter fashion “rules”, and why fashion and body-shaming is allover wrong in “If you like it, wear it!” In two easy steps, I’m going to explain how to get a beach body: 1. Have a body. 2. Take it to the beach! Let’s break it down: Have a body Beach body, bikini body – it’s all the same! When we say we need a “____” body in order to do something, we’re saying that our body is not qualified. I got a great swimsuit submission last week from a girl named Liz. With her submission, she wrote: “Want to know how to get a bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. Boom. Done.” It’s very common to feel as though your appearance needs to “measure up” in order to participate in certain aspects of life. Honestly, VERY few people actually do make “the cut” when it comes to adhering to the skewed standard our culture upholds physical beauty to. Tons of people feel this way – not feeling “good enough” is almost the norm. But just because it’s common doesn’t mean that it’s right – or healthy. Objectifying yourself so that you are basing your self-worth on your appearance can have some serious consequences.

News flash: Your worth is IMMEASURABLE. Feeling negatively about your body affects your self-esteem, which can trickle into other areas of your life. Low self-esteem will affect the way you make choices, how you treat yourself and how you approach your health and quality of life. In short, denying yourself enjoyment because of the way you feel toward your body is really selling yourself short – think of all the things you’re missing out on! Take it to the beach Do you really believe that your body should be excluded from a place because of its shape? Fuck that noise! You don’t need to be a certain way in order to do ANYTHING. However, society would like you to believe differently – and they’ll spend millions of dollars to make you believe it! Don’t buy into it! What it really comes down to is CONFIDENCE. You have to be confident enough to believe that you deserve what you want in life and the only one who can determine whether or not you belong is YOU. Here are 10 great confidence-building tips from Scoot Magazine:

Smile! Not only will it brighten your day, but it will make others around you smile, too.
At the end of each day write down something you think you did well.
Listen to songs that make you happy, not ones that make you want to shut yourself off from the world and cry alone in your room.
Believe that you’re in a confidence bubble – like you’re wearing an invisibility coat.
Love what you wear (more on this here!). When you think you look good, it changes the way you feel. This will make you confident with presenting yourself to society.
Walk with purpose, like you have somewhere to be (you do!).
Make eye contact when you’re talking or listening to someone.
Next time you’re at a social gathering, meet someone new.
Clear out the clutter in your life – physically, mentally, emotionally.
Stop comparing yourself to others. As Iyanla Vanzant says “Comparison is an act of violence against the self.” There’s a lot of truth to that!

I recently found some amazing body image videos, which I have to share with you! You might want to bookmark this post just so you can go back and watch them whenever you’re having a vulnerable moment and feel like you aren’t good enough to do/wear/be something. I love this one because it’s really about belonging to yourself and realizing that the opinions of other people don’t matter at all. OWN IT! Discovering this video was easily one of the happiest 1:38 minutes of my week! It’s hilarious and will remind you not to take things so seriously! And here is an AWESOME video from Emma Blackery, which I stumbled upon by chance! This is a must-watch – it’ll definitely put body image and appearance into perspective for you and show you why your physical appearance should not get in the way of what you want to do and achieve! I hope that this post has helped you realize that body image is no reason to hold yourself back from getting out there and enjoying the summer! Join us next week for our next body image-building post: It’s not just about size. And don’t forget to follow our campaign on Twitter using the #suiturself tag, check out our submission gallery, or send us your own submission to submissions@beutifulmagazine.com! Related posts from the Suit Urself series: If you like it, wear it! Work what you’ve got! Body acceptance tips Why are body image challenges important? Suit Urself! Choose your attitude this summer with our body-positive swimsuit challenge!

About The Author

Patricia Colli, Editor of Beutiful Magazine, is a human rights activist, equality advocate, and promoter of health, acceptance and wellbeing. Having experienced disordered eating, unhealthy exercise patterns and poor body image, she is especially passionate about shedding light on eating disorders and the power of body acceptance.