I’m Laura and I’m proud of my body, but I haven’t always been.Being comfortable in your own skin is so hard. I remember looking at myself in a mirror when I was 11 years old and disliking the way my stomach stuck out over my jeans. But slowly, incrementally I’ve come to like the way I look, and even the bits of me that society tells me I shouldn’t. Here’s what those bits are—and how I’ve learned to love them all.
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Cellulite
Stretch marks
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Again, I tried to hide them. I started wearing one-piece bathing suits. I started having more sex in the dark. I tried to get rid of them with different creams and balms and exercises. I never saw attractive girls parading their stretch marks out loud and proud, which to me was the silent hot girl code for “that’s not a thing you want people to see.”I kept my stretch marks shamefully hidden until I realised that hiding them wasn’t going to change a fucking thing.
Lower stomach fat
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I’ve been self-conscious about my lower stomach since forever. We’ve been conditioned to think that having a “flat” stomach makes you attractive, and it’s something I feel like I’ve been aware of not having my whole life. Being a victim of the dreaded stomach bloat, while also naturally holding more weight in my lower stomach, I’ve been hard on my tum during times it hasn’t deserved it. I’ve chosen outfits depending on how my stomach looked in them, I’ve worn belts, loose tops, higher heels, corsets. I spent years of my life doing everything in my power to hide my lower stomach fat, thinking it made me less appealing. It’s still something I—and dare I say most—women struggle with.I don’t know what it was about that middle-aged woman’s words that really got to me. I suppose she was someone I didn’t know, telling me a “truth” about my body that I’d been dreading to hear for so long.But there was something else.There was this anger inside of me, because what right did she have, assuming things about my lifestyle and body? She assumed me to be pregnant, to be a big drinker, to already feel as though I was not pretty or skinny (as if those two things are dependent on the other), and then I realised that she represents the reason why we continue to struggle with body image.I decided at that moment that she deserved a big FUCK YOU, as does anyone who perpetuates the idea that you’re only allowed to carry stomach weight if you’re carrying a child.
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