When did you feel really good about your body?

[neepsntatties]

I have spent most of my life feeling awful about my body. I can only think of a couple of occasions where I haven't felt bad about it. When I was a child and played all sorts of active games and didn't give my body a second thought until the teenage years hit and that went out the window and then when I was pregnant had also when I had just given birth to my baby girl and my body felt strong in a kind of primal way but I couldn't hold onto that feeling.

So I am interested in the moments when other women felt really good in their own skin and how (if) those moments could maybe be harnesed and extended into something sustainable.

I feel a kind of shame over my post pregnancy body which really annoys me at the same time as my body has produced life so the signs of that should be something to be really proud of, something that should be seen as beautiful but I just don't feel that way about it at the moment. I am trying to think of ways I could positively counter that feeling.

I hope this makes some sense!

This is a really interesting thread - thanks for starting it!

I've occasionally liked mine. It is very un-feminist, but I probably felt happiest with it at the time from about 19-22, when I was a size 8-10 (thanks in large part to mild eating disorder earlier in my teens, so in retrospect it wasn't great). But I felt incredibly self-conscious that I had no boobs, and I had no energy. I'd love to say I'm really happy with it now and I like the way I look naked, but I am perfectly well aware that I'm overweight by society's standards and get a lot of 'you must love your curves ... you're so relaxed about your belly' comments from men and women (I'm a small size 14 and perfectly healthy). It's depressing.

I'm a lot less self-conscious now though - there's a big difference between feeling good about your body and feeling unselfconscious about it's flaws, IMO.

I have never felt good about my body. I started being told by peers at school that I was fat from when I was about 5 and it continued until I left. Went on my first diet at 12 and was bulimic by 17. I have had moments of feeling good about my body and often think I look nice but it's always to do with how thin I am, whether I have lost weight or (previously, not now) whether some tosser wanted to have sex with me. I don't feel that that really represents feeling genuinely good about yourself, I have moments of that, but it's sort of a work in progress. When I am physically fit I start to feel that, I like feeling strong. A few years ago I was doing a lot of boxing and lifting weights and my muscles were bigger and I was strong, really strong. I loved that. It wasn't very 'feminine' but I didn't care, I felt great. Have been running lots lately and the sensation of feeling fit is coming back, and that is when I get closest to feeling properly, genuinely pleased with my body and how it works.

Girls Girls, beauty is within you ,accept the way you look , be happy with what you have been given,& make the most of it. Without spending tens of thousands on cosmetic surgery you can't do much to alter your framework.
Today I met some mumsnet girls, big , small & thin, all of them radiated beauty in different ways with great personalities.

I have never really worried about my body. Its all gone a bit south now but I am in my mid 40s so am not that bothered.

I have never felt good about my face though. At times I have been at the point of wishing I could cover it completly.
I am not that bad now but I still dont look directly into the mirror. Always at an angle and when I do my make up I look at each bit seperately IYSWIM.

Interesting post with that name, flatbelly!

If you can just give me your foolproof three-second route to accepting my body that I and thousands of other women have been missing for years, I'll be all set!

I don't appreciate being addressed as "girls girls" thanks, did you mean to come across as a patronising prick?

Back to the topic, I'm pretty happy with my body most of the time. It's given me a lot of pleasure, a baby, carrying another at the moment, won some fights, sent many men wild with desire what's not to like?

I did feel very very pissed off with my breasts when I found it impossible to breastfeed my son, but I forgave them in the end. And it would be easier to buy clothes if I was a bit shorter. But then being very tall did help me come to terms with the fact that I was NEVER going to be a teeny weeny princess quite young so it's swings and roundabouts really.

Flatbellyfella - this is the feminist topic! And you called us 'girls!'

(but the sentiment was fine.)

I never have! Which is a shame. Doing what I can to bring up dd with a positive towards her own body.

When I look back on photos on me in my 20s, I think, 'Oh my Lord, my body was perfect!' but I never thought that at the time.

Now, 2 kids on, I think my body is great - it probably isn't but maturity has made me more deluded accepting.

mamaloves I have a really inspiring friend who had a lot of body issues (eating disorders etc) when younger and one of the things I really noticed spending time with her and her daughter recently was that she referred to her own body really positively. For example when toddler pulled her t-shirt up in cafe se said "No, love, we don't need to show people mummy's lovely tummy" (but NOT in a sarky way) and when getting changed for baths etc she described her daughter's body to her really Positively as well "let's take your trousers off, here are your lovely strong legs" etc. She was working really hard at it and her five year old daughter I thought had already absorbed a lot of confidence from it - she was happy to talk about how fast she could run, how nice it was to be tall etc. I really admired my friend for it and thought it might help you to know that even if you have felt ambiguous or negative about your own body you CAN avoid passing these feelings on.

Grumpla that's lovely.

That's what I try to do but society still gets them in the end. DD1 is 12 and when got to secondary school started saying she was fat

I make a massive effort with DD2 (3) and talks about how strong she is and how her legs are so good for running and how she has such a lovely tummy. I hope that continues.

Those of you who do feel comfortable now, what would you say to your younger self to help her avoid all of the body angst?
I wish someone had told me that in the greater scheme it just doesn't matter. People wouldn't like me more for being thin or looking "perfect". I wasted loads of my teenage years staying out of the sun light because I hated my freckles. How I wish I could have those summers back now!

Ellie that's a good point about peer pressure/society.

I think one thing we could do is really limit our exposure to the type of media that makes women feel inadequate, especially female/celebrity magazines and TV advertising. You can't escape all of it because this stuff is literally everywhere, but limiting exposure helps. It's surprising how even the most body-confident woman can feel insecure when she's constantly bombarded with messages about the importance of youthful skin and a bikini body. Most of us look pretty damn attractive just as our ordinary selves. If we didn't the human race would have died out long ago.

With my DC I like to challenge what I consider bad advertising. So my poor 4-year-old DTs have already been subjected to a discussion about that sodding Lelli Kellie advert with the makeup thingy.

I'd be hopelessly naive if I think my indoctrination will override all of it of course, but I hope it will sink in enough for them to apply some critical thinking skills and allow them to have a healthy attitude to their bodies and life once they get past the dreadful angst of puberty where pretty much everyone hates how they look.

I felt really really good about my body today.
I went to an Ashtanga yoga class (was a bit worried thought I wouldn't keep up) I just loved the flow, the feeling of strength, the feeling of lightness, and I kept up easily with all the yougsters ( I am almost 45)
When I was in my 20's and 30's I was so skinny(on purpose) but felt weak in body (I was) and I wasn't that strong mentally either. Now I am fit, have muscle, weigh ten pounds more, and have 4 fab kids as well. I think yoga, diet, friends and getting older and not worrying so much about what others think has made me appreciate that this is as good as it gets.

OK I've been thinking a bit more about this. I've always held on to the healthy body/healthy mind thing (within reason though, I like curry, crisps, chocolate and far too much to be holier-than-thou about it ).

However, what if you don't have a healthy body? How can you manage to feel good about your body even if it doesn't do what it needs to? I feel it's important that you do. Why should anyone feel less good about themselves because of something they probably have no control over.

I am probably over-thinking this aren't I.

How do we separate the physical from everything else? Do we actually need to? Or is the answer to find greater acceptance of the human body in all its forms and 'limitations'?

I remember laying in bed in the Christmas of '95, and feeling really proud of my body. I don't think I had ever felt that way before or since.
I have never been that concerned about my body and how it looks, because, to be frank, its my body, and how it looks is for my pleasure.

Oh BoF. I'm really sorry.

I had no idea you'd had to suffer all that. Psoriasis is horrible. One of my friends had it and I remember how one particular outbreak pretty much led to her refusing to go out for a while.

I don't know what to say that doesn't sound like a completely meaningless platitude TBH, but I think it's pretty amazing that you continue to post with such humour and lightness, yet also with depth, without betraying any of that discomfort in your posts. That's probably part of the reason why your DP loves you so much.

Oh, don't, Sunshine- you'll make me cry!

My body felt OK when I was six or seven. I was really good at cartwheels, backflips and doing stuff on a bar/trapeze. But my mum put me on my first diet at three and then, at 8yo, my ballet teacher told me I couldn't enter the test as I was a fairy elephant. Or, at least that's what my mum relayed :(

At 14-15 I was in a pre-olympic diving team (flipping again!) but didn't associate what I did with my own body - I still thought of myself as fat. I had a diving accident, then developed anorexia. I still didn't feel good about my body; by then, I'd also acquired a fear of body hair that was to last until my fifties.

In my twenties - having sent genuine model scouts away with a barrage of abuse, assuming they were taking the piss! - my lovely boss, Jan, gave me a copy of Susie Orbach's "Fat Is A Feminist Issue". I recognised what Orbach was saying, did what the book recommended, and fixed my eating disorders.

Through my thirties, not longer disordered in that respect, I got on with my brilliant career and my not-so-brilliant personal life, never thinking about my body as anything other than a superbly useful part of me. When Marriage #1 broke up, my best friend said "Well, you have gained a lot of weight." I pointed out that I'd previously been underweight. But what she said sank in anyway, but I wouldn't diet any more ... so I developed an exercise addiction instead.

Late thirties to late forties, Marriage #2 came and went traumatically, but the gym remained my friend. I worked out at least six times a week, often ten or twelve. I was very happy with my body! But this wasn't about feeling comfortable with my own skin (and muscle, ligament, fat, etc) - it was about controlling it, just like the anorexia. I said all the right things, but really I wasn't happy being my self; I was matching my body to a series of targets, ticking off boxes that meant "one less point of inadequacy". Gyms encourage this.

Eventually I broke. All that performance, all that control, couldn't hold in the turmoil inside of me and, sufficiently triggered, it all gave way. I became so ill that I couldn't walk to the street corner without holding on to garden walls & fences. I lost control of my bodily functions - it rebelled completely. I don't blame it.

I'm still recovering. I got the message. I work at loving my body: all its squishy curves, wrinkles and sags, and calluses and hairs; all its softness, resilience, sheen, healing powers, and what it actually does. It's fucking amazing! And so is yours.

I'm nearly as comfortable in my self as I was at six or seven - not quite, because I still can't cartwheel or handstand. But I'm no longer 6 years old: I'm looking towards the end of life, not the beginning; I'm experienced, have seen wonders and felt despair; I'm becoming comfortable with ME and my body is neither "me" nor "not-me". It's not a shell, it's who I am and there's much more to me besides :)

Fat Is A Feminist Issue still reads a little old-fashioned, although it's been updated. Even so - the more threads I read on forums, the more convinced I become that women really need to read it!

I second what sunshine said BOF

and I am glad you said "but what about if your body isn't healthy"

mine is at the moment, but I realise I may be on borrowed time

I have done, and still do, some things to abuse it, and at 45, time isn't on my side

I don't take my health for granted, that is for sure and try to love my body (warts'n'all) while it still does everything I want it to do

BOF, I had psoriasis too. It arrived out of nowhere, at the worst imaginable time, and was utterly debilitating. It was part of my breakdown; I got the message. I'm now very sympathetic to people who have it long-term; it's just so weird and makes you so very, very tired :(

All I can say is what you must be tired of hearing: rest more than you think you can, because you need it - and it's true, it does liberate one's creativity. A strange compensation for a weeping skin, to be sure.

Do take care. x

When I was in my late 20s and very, very fit. It was the first and only time in my life I was lean and toned and I was proud of my body, because I worked hard to get it in shape.

Even now, I don't admire thin people particularly - they may be lucky or they may eat very unhealthily. But I admire fit people with obvious muscle tone - they look after themselves and their health.

I'm ashamed that I've put all my weight back on, but not because I feel like I look bad to everyone else, but because I find it rediculous that I lack the ability to stop stuffing 2-3 boxes of biscuits into my mouth in one sitting. It's stupid behaviour and not healthy. So why do I do it? I wish I could find out how to stop, not to look better, but to be in control of this idiotic behaviour and be healthy.

I still run, cycle and do karate, so I'm fit enough, but the extra weight makes it more difficult than it should be.

So, I wish I were thinner, but not necessarily for aesthetic reasons.

That being said, I looked back this very evening on old photos from when I was ripped and gorgeous, I remembered how even then I felt like I was far from perfection and had various lumps and bumps that shouldn't have been there.

AnnieLobeseder, I think that you put the weight back on because that's just the way the cookie crumbles. I think the idea its about willpower and the like is just a media construction too... no evidence dieting works or even, crucially, that being in a certain weight bracket will reduce health risks. The figures only say that people of a certain weight have less risk, not that if you were a higher weight and you lose weight that you lose the risk.

I looked fantastic before my wedding. Slim, fit, healthy. Was doing lots of walking, generally happy with life. That has become my internal image now and I get a shock sometimes when I see a photo and realise how much has changed! In my favourite pictures of myself, I am 10 st (wedding dress), 12st 4 (sister's wedding), 12st 10 (on holiday with my husband, a snapshot in Central Park in the snow) and 14st 7 (holding my newborn baby boy).

Mostly, weight is an irrelevance, body shape is an irrelevance.. yes, if you are grossly obese.. but mostly I end up tipping the BMI scale at 25 or 25.5 and I eat a good diet and am reasonably active. These things matter. Shapes don't.