Body Confidence - Abi Kelly | Guest Week

Firstly I would like to say hey, to all of you on this beautiful blog, I’m Abi. I am so happy to be writing here and have thoroughly enjoyed reading the other guest post's so go check them out! I will give thanks to Lou for letting me be part of this. If you have never read my blog before (acuppaandahalf.blogspot.co.uk) I do chatty posts mostly. Partly because they are slightly easier to come up with and partly because it is what I feel comfortable with. When faced with the problem of what to write for this blog, I was extremely stuck. Do I go deep? Or do I try not to scare you off? In the end I decided to do a post,that was in part, inspired by one of the friendly emails (a project thing I do). I wrote about being kind to yourself, and some truths, and it got me thinking.

Since a fairly young age, I have always been conscious of my weight, I am not severely overweight, but I am not really slim either, I guess most would call me normal, no flat stomach, no thigh gap definitely, but enough fat that I feel gross about my body a lot. That, tied in with hormones and the human instinct to not like your body is not necessarily a great mix. So it is safe to say that therefore for a lot of my life, when I look in the mirror, like many people, I go “Oh I would like to lose weight there, and maybe there.” This leads to meltdowns, tears and sometimes shouting.

It is also therefore common for me to try and fix it, which is doable, do exercise and eat better. Yet when I don’t feel okay about my body already, and don’t see an instant change immediately I turn to food. So I guess by now, you are probably wondering, when I am going to get to my point and here it is.

We live in a hypocritical world, where we are told to be happy with ourselves, but first to change things. We find it easy to blame social media, but from experience, people around you affect you just as much. So here is the straightforward message to you. I get when you hate your body, when you physically can’t see your body, and cover it. I get when you cry, because you feel gross. So firstly take some deep breaths, and remember some truths about your body. Firstly, you are beautiful, and I know me telling you this won't help, but tell it to yourself until you believe it. Secondly, once you have calmed down a bit, put on an outfit you feel really great in, it doesn’t have to be flattering, it has to be something you feel good in. Thirdly, next time you look in the mirror, pick out things you like even if it is the tiniest thing. I hope that this connects with someone and I hope you enjoyed this post and comment something you love about yourself. Much Love x