When it comes to my appearance & weight I have so often heard things like “Just put the pizza down and skip the donuts for once” often unsolicited…. So many people seem to find it hard to believe that I am not stuffing my face 24/7 with junk food ordering 4 take aways a day after having a full fried breakfast until they actually spent some proper time with me and see what I eat.
Many larger people out there actually have much healthier diets than you might think, eating quite well and with pretty healthy food (maybe a *little* too much of it, though). And no this is no “diet food shop” – this is ‘normal food’ & a pretty regular shop for me.
I, like many others, have gotten big by serial dieting, each time putting on a little more and each time wrecking my metabolism a little more. 20 years of guilt and weight fluctuations have messed with my head, metabolism, self-esteem and body as a whole.
So I have decided to skip the diets and try to live every day being the best & healthiest version of myself that I can be today, eating well, exercising & sleeping more. If that leads to weight loss great but should nothing happen I would still love my body just as much!
This is what body positivity and health at any size truly are about. Focusing on health & not size. Doing for your health what you can, not postponing “living” and “being worthy” till you have reached that magical number on your scale. Something so many of us have done, watching life pass us by while hating ourselves
Live now! Eat well! Move your body! Sleep well and a lot! And most importantly love yourself! And take care of yourself!
I would love to hear your opinion. Let me know what you think. I would also love to hear if you have made any similar experiences? How do you deal with it?
Since I learned to love Bikinis I have added more and more of to my collection. By now I have lost count of how many bikinis I own. And although my collection grew steadily, for some reason I did not end up sharing those beautiful swimwear pieces with you. So I thought it was more than high time to at least share my very favorite Bikini of the 2016 season with you – especially as I took some great pictures when I was on a short holiday at the beach earlier this year.
Forever 21 – My Favourite Place For Swimwear
This beautiful plus size bikini is from Forever 21. I only really took note of them last year. Since then they have though not disappointed me when it comes to plus size swimwear. They had absolutely stunning bikinis but also two pieces during both swimwear seasons. Next year they will definitely be amongst the first sites I that will check for the new swimwear. I do have high hopes for the swimwear season 2017.
Beautiful Colour, Great Hold & Sexy Detailing
I do love it’s beautiful turquoise color and the harness like detailing even more – a subtle but sexy detail. The best thing about Forever 21 bikini tops though is the hold & comfort they provide.
I am wearing a 3x and it covers and lifts my bust nicely without squashing or creating a third boob. There will be quite some leeway regarding the bust sizes the top will support – due to the stretch fabric. I am however not sure how it is going to support smaller breasts, as the smaller the breast the less will be the stretch and with it the lift. For reference, my bra size is around a 42H in combination with a clothing size 24/26. Should your bust be much smaller, it might be worth sizing down to a size 2x. Probably you should even consider ordering both sizes, even if you are otherwise the same size as me.
What About You?
Which retailer is your go-to bikini or swimwear shop? Have you dared to wear a bikini yet? What does your favourite swimsuit look like?
If you are like me you will love to get proper glammed up once in a while when having a night out with the girls, going to any other sort of special event or sometimes simply just because. The only thing that does feel even better than glamming yourself up is getting glammed up – and there is a new kid on the blog when it comes to booking experts.
A Little Glam Can Go A Long Way For Body Positivity & Self Love
Getting glammed up really can do so much more than just getting you ready for a special event or a night out. Practising some self-love & self-care by trying out some new amazing makeup looks or getting your “hair did” can do soo much for your self-esteem and make you feel soo good about yourself and even your body.
This does make me think of “Cheap Thrills” by Sia. It does express in a great way how treating yourself to a little makeover (and hitting the dance floor with your loved ones) can make you feel a million dollars.
Everybody needs a little glam once in a while. At least this is how I feel.
So What Is BeGlam & What Has It To Do With Getting Glammed Up?
Like I said earlier, the only thing that feels even better than glamming yourself up is getting glammed up with some professional help, making you look your best and pampering yourself a bit – and this where BeGlam comes in.
Source: www.beglam.co.uk
BeGlam allows you to easily browse and book your local makeup artists and hair stylists. The great thing about freelance MUAs and stylists is that they will come to you rather than you having to go to their studio or salon, so this is perfect for a little pamper party at home or especially if you are looking for a somebody to do your wedding makeup and hair for you and your bridesmaids.
Source: www.beglam.co.uk
You can book via the website or the iPhone/iPad app. I believe an Android versions in planned and will follow soon. If you are interested, keep an eye on my Facebook page, I will let you know as soon as BeGlam will hit the Google Play Store.
Bubbly, Celebs & Makeovers At The Release Party
The release party at the Artisan was good fun: Celebrity guests (Housewives of Cheshire), makeovers, tasty food and bubbly.
Oh and yes, I mentioned celebrities. Who they were. I was told they were part of the cast of The Real Housewives of Cheshire. I have to admit I would have not recognised them or had the faintest idea who they were wasn’t I told as I do not really watch that sort of show, but once it was pointed out to me who they were it was actually interesting and nice to meet them.
I guess while this would have been an exciting point for many, it was a little lost on me.
However, celebs or not the event was great, you simply can’t beat the combination of bubbly, yummy food and especially makeovers.
Here is a quick glimpse of what I wore on the day. The beautiful Lindy Bop ‘Ionia’ Sea Blue Polka Dot Plus-Size Tea Dress. I do love this dress and I got a lot of compliments for it. I will fairly soon post a full review of this dress to give you a better idea and include some better pictures of what I mean by that.
I want to leave you with one little word of warning though: If you consider buying this dress and your boobs are a bit on the larger side, you will have to be careful with this dress.
What do I mean by that? Take a closer look at my left boob in the picture (a thing I did not expect to say today…) . You should see a seam going across my boob. If this dress would fit as it was intended, this seam should lead around my bust, not across it. In my case the seam luckily ends up bang in the middle of my boob wich makes it kind of look like it was intended this way and I more or less get away with it.
All in all a lovely dress that I very much love but I guess if you are on the more well endowed side you will have to try the dress on and see where this seam ends up on you.
What Makes You Feel Glamorous?
What do you do when you want to feel glamorous? Have you ever booked a freelance make-up artist, mobile hairdresser or maybe a mobile nail artist?
Now go out put your make-up on do your hair and hit the dance floor, hit the dance floor….
Special Occassions – A Time You Should Feel Amazing
When attending a special occasion it is just so so important not only to finds a dress that looks great but to also in which one feels comfortable. Although what am I saying here, more than comfortable, one should feel a million bucks and struggle to avoid mirrors and other shiny surfaces as you love the sight of yourself so much. It is a time when you should feel amazing and it is a shame if an outfit you don’t like should be the thing ruining how you feel.
As much as this holds true as a wedding guest or similar, but especially when attending a once in a lifetime event like your prom, your daughters wedding or maybe even your own wedding it is more than only important, it is crucial.
Making Do – The Issue With Ill-Fitting & Boring Dresses
It is a real shame how much we plus-size ladies have to make do with mediocre and ill-fitting dresses on occasions like this. Might it be just because there is hardly any choice or that clothes were so hard to find our compromise arrived last minute and there is just no time to exchange it or finally the worst case when we did not find anything at all. In this case we are presented with the choice of not going or we often make do with any day dress we can find that we can somehow pass on as evening dress.
I Hated My Graduation “Dress”
I do think back to my graduation ball (Abiball). This is one of the rare occasions in German everyday life where you have an excuse to dress yourself up to the nines.While other girls usually attend the dance in lovely flowy evening gowns, I was forced to wear a more or less tight chinese print tunic over black trousers. This was the best I could find after a 6-month search. I don’t think there are even any pictures of myself in that outfit I hated it so much…
Florentyna Dawn – One Of The Rare Truly Size Inclusive Boutiques
Experiences like this are what make me appreciate little gems and exceptions from the norm like Florentyna Dawn so much. Florentyna Dawn is one of the rare shops that are truly size inclusive and body-positive. Without question, they are offering all their dresses in a size 6-50+. Yes the plus means that even the 50 is not limiting. They specialise in mother of the bride dresses, but they do have something available for any special occasion you might come across. We do need more size inclusive businesses like that, that are not petite, not plus size, not tall but just well stocked and flexible!
#WhatILoveAboutYou – Plus Size Blogger Event
A while back they invited some of us ladies for an afternoon to their Hazel grove shop and they made all of us literally feel like princesses. The dresses were stunning. It was amazing to be able to take dresses as special as these of the rail and to be able to just try them on.
One might expect they have the dresses in a few standard sizes and if you are above that you have to order them in, but this is not the case. While each of us came in a different size representing pretty much the whole size spectrum each and any of us were able to pick some lovely dress of the rail and try it on.
The day was absolutely amazing, not only were the dresses stunning Florentyna Dawn had even invited an amazingly talented MUA Sarah Maredith who did our hair and makeup and she really did an amazing job!
We all literally did feel and look like princesses.
We really have to give a massive thank you to the amazing ladies of Florentyna Dawn for making this awesome day possible and for making each of us feel so special and simply put, like princesses.
The lovely staff of Florentyna Dawn & the owner Dawn Priestnall (3rd from left)
Florentyna Dawn Sponsoring Ms British Beauty Curve
I am more than proud to announce that Florentyna Dawn is supporting me as Ms. Manchester Curve 2016 and will be one of my sponsor the in Miss British Beauty Curve Pageant.
Have A Browse
If you have an event coming up I can only recommend giving them a look either online at www.florentyna-dawn.co.uk or maybe even in their brick in mortar shop in Stockport near Manchester.
What Do You Think?
Like always I would love to hear from you, about your experience and what you think. This time I really can’t decide on one question, so here are a few things I would love to hear from you about:
Up till now my blog has centered mainly around fashion, body positivity and self love with the occasional beauty post sprinkled in, going forward I am going to add a new section to the blog: #HealthyCurves.
Invisible
From the runway to the Sports Illustrated Swimwear Issue, we plus size ladies have by now conquered so many domains. The gym-scene however is still one of the main areas where we lack visibility.
The result of this is unfortunately quite often that plus-size individuals are afraid of going to gym, scared of standing out, being stared at or maybe even being ridiculed. I myself have suffered from that in the past and still find myself once in a while looking around when I am at the gym.
Time For Us To Conquer The Gym
It is time for fat women exercising to be more visible making the sight of us in the gym a lot more normal – we need to conquer the gym and flaunt our curves proudly, showing off that we are fat and fit or at least fat and working on it.
Body Positivity – Loving Yourself To Make Healthier Choices
But this is about more than being confident enough to wear a gym outfit and to conquer your fear of being stared at. This is about loving yourself enough, to make healthy choices for yourself.
The issue is that most of us, if and when we were going to the gym, focus most of the time so much on weight that we end up failing so often, ending up in a never ending spiral, hating ourselves.Rather than focussing on weight, like I too used to do for so long, we should be focussing on making healthy choices every day, being the healthiest self we can be that day, just a day at a time. If it means that we are losing weight or not.
If we are stubbornly chasing a weight that is difficult for us to reach, it will most likely lead to us being a lot less healthy, either by us following unhealthy fad diets which do not only lead to bad nutrition but in most cases also to yo-yoing, in the worst case it might lead to eating disorders or other mental illnesses and finally in most cases it will lead to simple plain unhappiness which is practically guaranteed by chasing an in many cases unattainable number, or at least unattainable in the short time we give us.
Torturing ourselves like that is often even unnecessary. While I am pretty sure no one will argue that weight does not have an influence on health. The idea of how thin we actually have to be to be healthier is also over-estimated. Not everybody is made to reach a size 8. To be healthy it is important to listen to our own bodies, however, to do this it is important that we are honest with ourselves.
My Story & Relationship With My Own Body And Fitness
I myself had to make theses experiences myself in a quite painful way. I have yo-yoed around most of my life going from crash diet to crash diet most of the time following a self-hating low till a few years back I decided that it was finally time to follow through and make the big chang, become a new person.
I was convinced this time I would make it and this time, I would make it to make the long-term change, a lifestyle change not a diet. I put all my effort in it for a very long time and over the time of more than 1.5 years I lost 30 kilos (ca 5 stone) slimmed down to a size 18 and even ran a half marathon. I was so proud of myself.
Then I hit the wall, the weight did not want to budge further, but my BMI still called me obese, I still bought my clothes in plus size shops and society still called me fat?! What to do? I kept and kept trying, counted my calories, exercised obsessively, struck more and more foods out of my diet but still the weight did not budge. There it was again, that anger with myself…
At that time I did not have the confidence I have now, I still thought I was fat and ugly. I completely missed how great my body felt, that all tests said I was fit and healthy that I without issue was able to run 10kilometers. I look amazing now and looking back I now know I looked amazing then, but all I could see was that my clothes still said plus-size, that despite all blood and heart tests saying healthy the BMI chart still said obese. The official classification and the german society still called me fat. And so at some point, I gave up hope and the inevitable happened and I ended up unhappy and annoyed with myself and ended up gaining everything backover time.
Self-hate is not a good motivator. I am very very happy that after coming to the uk I stumbled across the body positivity movement who taught me that my self-worth is not tied to my weight. It took me a long time but now I love myself and my body and know that I am fucking beautiful.
Unfortunately however after I always used to be fairly fit more weight I have recently noticed that I am by far too quick out of breath and I have also picked up some lower back pain and the occassional early pain in my right knee – the typical weight issues. There is no way round it if I want to tackle that pain and make sure that knee stays healthy I need to tackle that gym and work on my health and this is a journey I would like to share with you and also want to use as an opportunity to as a fat woman be as visible as possible going to the gym and also beating my own residual phobias.
Love Yourself & Be Our Healthiest Self Every Single Day
The best we can do for ourselves is love ourselves and realise that we are beautiful and worthy as we are and do every day the best for ourselves and our body. Ultimately this will lead to our healthiesst self – should this in each individuals case mean losing weight or not.
This is ultimately what I am going to be working on and will try to convey via my new #HealthyCurves posts. I am by no means planning in turning this into a dietblog in any way shape or form, but from now on you can look forward to hopefully being able to me on my way back to an even happier, healthier self.
If You Live in Manchester & Surrounding you should definitely check out Bear SCP – Darren is by far one of the most body positive personal trainers I have met in a long time!
What Is Your Philosophy On Fitness?
Where do you stand when it comes to fitness? Are you a fitness fan or do you go nowhere near a gym? What is your favourite sport or fitness routine? What is the one fitness/self worth tip you would like to give to your younger self? I would love to hear from you?
They are a long running local Manchester Charity who is very passionate about supporting young people and are very aware of the challenges that particularly young girls face and are doing their best to help top equip them for these challenges.
In their weekly Young Women’s Night, they are welcoming young women for canoeing, games, discussions, food & workshops addressing important topics like body positivity & beauty, self-love & self-esteem as well as topics like love, drugs & bullying & many other challenges they face in their everyday lives.
Their strong passion for helping girls does not mean that there is nothing for boys. Every Thursday they hold a Youth club which provides a variety activities (including canoeing). There is also a coffee bar area where young people can relax with friends and chat to Youth Workers.” And every Sunday the welcome boys and girls of the ages 8 to 14 for canoeing, water play and adventure, music and art projects.
My Taster Canoe Session
For our taster session in the Aquatics Center we were first kitted out with a life-vest and given a short crash course in paddling and how to hold our balance and then it was already time to hit the water.
It was great fun, once the immediate fear of toppling over was under control and it does take only a few minutes till you gain basic control and get fairly stable. The last time I went paddling was about 15 years ago with school when I was about 15, so I am far from being an expert here. Only five minutes in I was doing rounds around the pool as if it was second nature and it was real fun.
It obviously is a great workout for the arms due to the paddling but this is not the only benefit. It is also, without you explicitly noticing, a great core workout as you constantly engage your core to maintain the balance. So this sport is a great alternative to the rather boring and generally loathed sit-ups.
Canoeing – Worth Giving It A Try
I can only recommend giving canoeing a try. Just have a google I am sure you will find a club that will offer canoeing in your region. And you do not need to worry not to fit into the canoe or life vest. I am a size 26 and the vest did fit with a lot of space and the canoe was very roomy, but in case you are still worried just give the group in your region a call. They will understand and look forward to meeting you and be more than happy to help you out.
Check Out The Water Adventure Centre
Should you live in the Manchester region and be yourself in the age relevant to the Water Adventure Centre groups or have family in the relevant age you should definitely give them a try or suggest it to your kids / nieces / sisters / grandkids / cousins. Have a look at their website here
Do you any great local body positive charities? Have you ever tried canoeing? What is your favorite watersport?
