Our Thoughts On What It Means To Have A Beach Body

And why we think now is a really good time for you to start showing up for yourself.

Before getting started I would like to preface this by admitting my age.

I’m 32. 

I think it's important to say this because part of why I think the idea of actually wearing a bikini (or a one-piece swimsuit even) is because for the longest time women were made to believe that our bodies were not good enough unless we are a certain size. I am not going to be the first person to say this to you, so you shouldn’t be shocked. Media in the last five years has really taken a massive shift along with fashion and honestly along with how we as women are shifting how we talk to (and about) ourselves.

Before women become women and are simply existing as girls, we are taught that we are not good enough. When we have long hair, we want it short. When we have dark hair, we want blonde. When we have freckles, we wish nothing more than for them to disappear but then all of a sudden everyone else wants them. Young girls who are happy, healthy, and exist in a body are led to believe that they should be existing in a different body.

A body that is smaller.

Thinner.

Less than what it currently is. 

Although there has been a shift in how we are talking to ourselves (which is why my age matters - I’m lucky to be growing up in a society that has sort of switched this narrative) and what our media is presenting to us, we are still constantly being sold this idea that what we have is not enough and what we want is within our reach - if we have the right product, the right trainer, the right meal, the right diet, and the willpower to keep it all together.

But what if all of that was actually bullshit?

What if you are perfectly fine just the way you are?

What if you were to wear a bikini to the beach and have a good time? Would you be shocked that the world did not end? Would you be confused as to why not a single soul pointed out all the things that you spent time picking apart about yourself before going to the beach? What if you’re landlocked in Canada and instead of the beach, you’re thinking about the holiday that you’re going to take to the lake this summer - what if you were to actually just ENJOY it for what it is, instead of hiding behind a large t-shirt, or pretending that you hate swimming just so that you don’t have to be seen?

Take a look at your social media feed these days. If you’re following the right people, what you’ll see is the shift I’m talking about. Gone for some of us are the days of wanting to fit into smaller bodies that are not ours. Gone are the days of hiding. Gone are the days of missing out on things that make you happy just so that you can get out of wearing a swimsuit. So many women online have committed to showing up in the bodies that they currently have, and what is that doing for the rest of us? Showing us that we can do the same thing!

This idea of stepping out of shame and into claim expands further than a bikini. I believe that women (and men, for that matter) should feel comfortable and confident in the fact that they need to dress the body that they currently have - claiming what is and owning it. 

You don’t have to LOVE it, but the truth of the matter is this - you have a body, and if you’re heading to the beach, then you also have a beach body.

Your body is heading to the beach, and that's all that matters.

Your body is heading to the pool, and that's all that matters.

Your body is heading out to a picnic in the dead of summer, and all that matters is that YOU are comfortable and that YOU show up in a way that makes it possible for you to really enjoy yourself.

You shouldn’t have to enjoy yourself from the sidelines anymore just because you’ve been trained to believe that you are not enough as you currently are. What you wear and what you present yourself like really truly doesn’t matter.

Like, at all.

What you look like on the outside really has nothing to do with who you are and it sure as sh*t isn’t the reason that people love you. If it is the reason that people are drawn to you, then those people are sort of shallow, and they need to get to know you for something other than what you look like on the outside.

But Kelsi, aren’t you talking about bikinis and the idea of a bikini body? Isn’t what you're saying basically that we should wear them because we are beautiful just as we are?

Yes. I am. That's what I’m saying. Sort of. If what you’re wanting to do is wear a bikini or a swimsuit and go spend a day with your friends or family while feeling happy - then that's what I want you to do.

If what you’re wanting, however, is to not? Then don’t. 

What I am saying is that I believe that more and more of us are coming to the realization that for so long, we have missed out on a lot of the things we wished we could do solely because we’re afraid of wearing the thing (or looking a certain way, causing someone to look at us a certain way, because of wearing the thing - whatever that thing is).

I’ve heard time and time again that people wish they could wear a bikini at the beach but they don’t think it's flattering on their body type. I’ve had women tell me that they missed out on making memories with their children because of what they looked like in a bikini. I’ve had friends tell me that they’ve noticed their daughters watching them get ready in the morning and wonder why Mommy doesn’t look happy when she gets dressed and how these women are terrified that they’re projecting their own body shame onto their young children. I’ve had women in my life tell me that they can’t wear something because they’re too old. I’ve heard women in stores say things like “Oh, I could never wear that in public. I’m shocked at how much I do love it, but I just could never”. 

I’ve heard time and time again, and that's why I think it's important to say the things I’m saying. 

If you want to do something, do it. 

Who the heck cares what some random person who you’re never going to talk to thinks about your clothing. Who the heck wants to make decisions about their life based on the opinions of others?

It’s 2022. We’re all better than that. Seriously.

And if we’re not? We should be. 

Love yourself, and love others - for exactly the body they have and the clothes they wear and the way they show up for water sports, okay?

And please, for the love, if there are people around you who are easily influenced (children, teens, and pretty much any vulnerable person around you) then I think it's your duty to watch what YOU say about YOUR body in front of them (either out loud, or with your actions). People are watching (your kids are watching), at all times, and whether you like it or not you have as much of a duty as the rest of us to help change the way we ALL think about our bodies and the bodies of people around us.

Now that I’ve said all of that, it seems to me that this is going to be one of those blogs that you read and then say “what the heck was that all about”? Regardless, I’ve said it now and I can’t take it back! 

However, I will tell you a story and if you make it to the end of this then I commend you because as I type this I do wonder when on earth it was that I decided this would be THE time to share something that I haven’t really ever shared.

I don’t remember ever loving my body. 

I don't remember ever really HATING it, but if I were to guess, I would wager that majority of my life I either was simply disappointed with how things turned out for me (how utterly depressing, really) or just sad that I couldn’t have what others had and that I had to be me.

The first time I remember being self-conscious about my weight (therefore, my body) was when I was in elementary school. I have the worst memory so I can’t be too sure, but I do remember that I was playing on the teeter-totter with a bunch of friends at recess and somehow we got to all sharing how much we weighed.

Where are we all weighing ourselves? In our parent's bathrooms - obviously. This was the 90s, and back then I think everyone had a scale. My parents and all the parents of people my age probably still have a scale and likely still base a lot of their self-worth on the number that their scale shows them.

I weighed over 100lbs and none of my friends yelled a number that was even close to that. 

I remember that two boys also weighed over 100lbs too and at the time I just kinda thought that I was cool cause I was like the boys but also I went home and probably for the next 20 or so years, I thought about this moment. 

I didn’t know what 100lbs meant at all, all I knew is that my number was bigger than everyone else's and that in fact made me stand out.

For the next handful of years, well into my teens, I was told that I had a J-Lo booty (which I did, there is no denying that) and that I was built like a bodybuilder. I guess that these can be seen as positive things, but as a growing teenage girl, I portrayed all of these things to be bad things, because again - none of the girls around me were being told those things. 

I stood out.

Sports were a part of my life since I could walk and I was always healthy and strong and built like a brick sh*t house (or so I was led to believe). Looking back on photos I can guarantee you that I was never overweight or even ever out of shape - but that wasn’t the point.

The shape I was wasn’t the shape that the magazines showed I should be, and I definitely wasn’t the shape that my friends were.

Now here's where the story gets more interesting. 

When I was born I had something called a hemangioma (A hemangioma (he-man-jee-O-muh) is a bright red birthmark that shows up at birth or in the first or second week of life. It looks like a rubbery bump and is made up of extra blood vessels in the skin. A hemangioma can occur anywhere on the body, but most commonly appears on the face, scalp, chest, or back) on my right leg, just above my knee. I won't go into much detail because I was only a few days old and I have no memory of it whatsoever, all I know is that all my doctors told my mom that eventually, I would have to have it lasered off but basically she could take me home and just to make sure that she didn’t bump it or it could really hurt and bleed a lot. 

Lasering it off never happened, because for reasons even the doctors can’t understand - it just went away. However, for reasons even the doctors can’t understand, instead of stopping so my leg looked normal - it sort of just kept disappearing and for my whole life, I’ve lived with this massive chunk missing out of the side of my leg.

When I say massive, I’ll paint you a picture - I’m currently 32, and it's probably 2.5” in diameter and at its deepest probably ¾” deep. It's not massive in reality, but when I get into how much stress and agony and embarrassment it caused me for the last twenty-some years of my life - it seems earth-shatteringly massive.

I don’t remember when I started becoming self-conscious of it, but from that day forward, I went a good fifteen-twenty years of my life trying to hide it and do whatever I could to lessen the chances that anyone would ever see it. 

I wore shorts that went to my knee every summer, even though I wanted so badly to wear the shorts all my friends were wearing.

I didn't wear really tight pants because I felt like you could tell it was there if you looked hard enough.

I faked a knee injury so that during my competitive volleyball seasons I could wear a knee brace that covered it as much as possible (volleyball was my life and spandex shorts actually felt so good, once I could bring myself to wear them, that is),

I walked on the left side of people ALL THE TIME if I was ever in a swimsuit so that their bodies would block my leg from being seen. 

I spent so much of my time saying that I hated shorts, bikinis, and hot weather so that no one would question my clothing choices.

Then, when I was twenty-one and I decided that I would move to Australia by myself so that I could figure out what life really was and I realized that summer in Queensland is unbearably hot and there was NO way I would be able to survive in long shorts and a shitty attitude. I didn't have any friends to walk on the right side of me, so I resorted to carrying a bag at all times.

Over time, I started to choose my clothing differently. Not because I wasn’t embarrassed (I still am) but because I sort of had to. It was hot, and I couldn't be bothered hiding anymore. 

I’ll skip all the details because honestly it's affected my life in SO many ways - but I’ll tell you this one thing. The more and more and more that I did the thing that TERRIFIED me, the less and less that it had ownership over me. 

Eventually, I became a person that wasn’t ONLY thinking about her leg. 

Eventually, I wore the clothes I wanted. 

Eventually, I walked down the beach by myself (but don’t be fooled, I am still terrified and full of anxiety every time I do it).

Eventually, I started to see myself as beautiful.

I was thirty or so before I ever believed I was beautiful. 

And now that I know that I am, and feel it sometimes - I have so much regret. I wish that I wouldn’t have let something so silly affect so many aspects of my life. Not just the bikini and the shorts, but the sports, and the pants, and the walking on certain sides of people, and the sitting in public spaces in certain ways, and the dating and the conversations and the shame and the everything else that starts to make me panic when I really think about it. 

I was never fat, but I was always big-boned with a J-Lo booty and a leg that I wanted to hide from the world for my own benefit. I am blessed with cellulite and legs that have never known a thigh gap. I’ve got cankles and whatever the equivalent of cankles is for your wrists.

And I wear a bikini.

Because I finally realized that there is so much more to me than the things that only I am going to ever pick apart about myself.

I eventually believed it when people told me that no one at the beach (or the pool or the lake) cares about what I look like because they too are too caught up in what they look like. And also, so what if they care - none of that even matters, at all.

No one cares enough about what you look like at the beach.

No one cares enough about what you look like at the pool.

No one cares enough about what you look like in your shorts and your tank top.

Only you care, and that's a really good thing because you can change your thoughts one step at a time - just like I have.

Also, if we want to talk about bikinis in specific being what makes a beach body - then please understand that I don’t think it has to be a bikini. You can choose to wear a one-piece with a V neck, or a high neck. You could choose to wear a tankini, or a bikini, or a pair of shorts and a top. As long as you choose something that allows you to have a really good time and show up for yourself instead of hiding in the background of other people's fun.

You have a body, and you deserve to take it places it wants to go - wearing whatever the heck it wants to wear.

Alright?

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk - except I’ll likely never have a Ted Talk and really I’m just grateful that you have even read this far.

If you’re thinking to yourself that the bikini I am wearing is too revealing, it’s okay. I don’t mind. I wear it because surprisingly it makes me feel like a bit of a babe, okay? I would never ever ever ever EVER have thought that I would wear something like this, let alone let people see me in it, take photos of it, or post it on the internet for all to see - but I guess growth really is one of those things that creeps up on you and surprises the heck out of you sometimes.

I don’t wear it for you.
I also don’t not wear it for you, either.

This is something that is all about me, and I urge you to do the same for you, too.

Head over to https://thecheekybikini.com/ to grab yours today and be part of a movement that the world needs to feel.