The Bikini Blues: How to Get Your Mind in Shape This Swimsuit Season
by Emily Roberts, M.A., LPC-I, Neurogistics Practitioner

Every time I turn on the T.V., there’s an ad for the newest fad diet, workout equipment, or special pill promising to make you perfectly toned “just in time for swimsuit season.”  Yeah, right. These ads promote an unhealthy relationship between you and your body: nothing is ever good enough. Before embarking on that outrageous cabbage soup diet or, worse yet, a fast, check yourself.  Is it your body or your mind that needs a workout?

Whether you’re a size 2 or 22, you can choose how you want others to see your body, and it starts with how you see yourself:

• Accept who you are, not what you should be. Ask who defines my ideal of perfection? What is good enough for my standards? It’s time to find out what you want to be, beyond what you look like in a swim suit.
• Change the way you talk to yourself. Get rid of the “should-a, could-a, would-a’s.” Start living in the now! Begin by adding “but” to the end of these sentences with yourself and add in something positive you did today. (ie: “I should have gone to the gym but having dinner with my parents was more important.”) As stupid as this may sound, over time it changes the way you feel about yourself and the decisions you make.
• Recognize your progress. Write down (and read) something positive about what you are accomplishing each day. “I am learning to take care of my body by running this morning.”
• Fake it till you make it. If you exude confidence, even if it’s in the way you carry yourself, people will respond to it.  If you talk in a low, soft voice, don’t maintain eye contact, and are slouched, especially in a swimsuit, people will assume you’re insecure.  By making direct eye contact, people will spend more time looking at your face than your “problem areas.” You may even see that, when you just stand up straight, that little tummy you are worried about disappears.
• Don’t make food the enemy. Starving yourself will only lead to being cranky and, when you begin eating anything “normal again,” you are bound to put the weight back on. When you’re trying to curb a craving, take a walk instead. After you workout your serotonin boosts and makes you feel better. Serotonin is the “feel good neurotransmitter.” Eating protein and working out naturally boosts this neurotransmitter, which in turn makes you feel better.
• Write a list of all your INTERNAL positive qualities. Put it on your mirror and read them to yourself every morning. It’s not all about the outside. Regardless of what you look like, your inner confidence is most important; it radiates on your outer beauty.

All in all, don’t jump out of the pool and wrap yourself in a towel, or worse yet a floaty.  Be proud of who you are, curves and all.  When you truly believe in yourself and love your body, flaws and all, others will too.  Your positive energy and confidence will out shine whatever you are (or aren’t) wearing.

bathing suit, beach, body, body image, diet, health, pool, summer