Be YOUR BEST YOU
Guest Blog by camilla dempster


Body confidence is one of those taboo subjects that gets such a ton of limelight, in both the positive and negative.  The thing is, you can have the size 6 body or the size 20 body and feel as dissatisfied, swamped in an overwhelming lack of confidence.  Your size really doesn’t matter - it is the mindset.  Looking at the front cover of a well known health and fitness magazine targeted at women it’s utterly confusing and contradictory.  One headline shouts “how wellness helps through heartache” next to an image of a woman unashamedly confident in her body.  The next headline screams “Burn fat fast” and the next “next-level lunches”.  On one hand a holistic approach caring for mindset and confidence, on the other augmenting your body in order to feel confident.  The misguided contradictions stop here.  I’m going to run through a common story of body confidence growth and outline how you can grow your own body confidence.


the story

There once was a girl who was pushing 100kg.  She was told at a general check up that for her height she was clinically obese at the age of 15.  Shame, guilt and anger.  She found ways to control her weight - through excessive exercise, 2-3 hours per day, and bulimia. She thought that by controlling her weight, her size and her body she’d feel good enough to have a life.  She spent the next 10 years yo-yo dieting.  Of dieting, of messing up then binging, then restricting over again once she’d been able to cajole herself into that punishment.  Every time she tried and failed she fell further into a pit of despair.
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Yep - I just wrote in the third person on a blog.  And I’m ok with that.  I was that girl.  At times, whilst I was losing weight I can’t lie to you - I did feel on top of the world.  I felt confident when the scales were down, when I fit into my jeans.  But there was always a niggle in the back of my head.  Then, those times were dimmed and overpowered ten fold by the unmeasurable lows when the scales went up.  Or I couldn’t control myself at a party and ate some off limits food.  Or if I was hormonal and my body bloated a bit.  Or even if I missed a gym session or even just couldn’t physically push myself that hard in a spin class.


The thing is at my highest, lowest and all the roller coaster points in-between I never felt confident.  Until I began to unpack that story and learn what really works for my body and change my mindset.

Have you ever?
  • thought that you can’t wear [that dress/the bikini/skirt/top/jacket] because it doesn’t suit your body 
  • said that you’re ‘feeling fat’
  • dieted in order to feel better about yourself
  • said no to a cake or desert of drink because you were fearful of the calories
  • looked at the scales and felt that doom when the numbers have risen
  • avoided social situations or beach time because you hate your body
  • said no to sexy time because you didn’t want your partner to see or feel your body

If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to one or more of those things, and have read this far, I think you know that your confidence isn’t where you’d like it.  And that has a far reaching impact upon your whole life.  Here are the ways in which you can build your confidence so that you too can strut your stuff and feel amazing in whatever you want to wear.

Principles of Being your Best YOU, Defined by YOU

  1. Define exactly what you want from your body, life and dream.  For the long and short term.  Because if you blindly follow someone else’s idea of what that dream body or life looks like you’ll end up further away than when you started.  Defining where you want to be with your confidence and what you want your life to look like is the first step.  Do you want to be a ring girl and walk around a boxing ring in a bikini or be able to get naked in front of your partner in confidence?  The two things will have different journeys, so knowing your end destination is key.  Without that clarity you’ll get lost or stuck pretty quickly.
  2. Determine how you’re going to get there for your personality type and lifestyle. And this comes down to again, understanding you and what motivates you.  As Tony Robbins says “find your why, find your way”.  This is one of the biggest take aways I learnt as I was training trainers with PTA Global - emotion breeds motion.  So understanding the emotion driving you will enable you to gain motion.  And that motion flows with understanding how you can make your life MORE easy by choosing the best lifestyle habits for you.
  3. Detect & overcome any possible obstacles.  With the life coaching, NLP and motivational interviewing that I’ve learnt over the past 7 years I can tell you, with 99% confidence that this is where the rubber hits the road.  We all have things that crop up and challenge us - normally especially when we’re trying to up-level.  Pre-framing those obstacles, where possible, will benefit your long term engagement and consistency as you grow into an adaptability machine.
  4. Decide to go do it, like actually really commit.  The most important question I ask all of my clients is this, are you ready and willing to commit right now?  If that is not a 100% YES then likely something needs to be tweaked to improve confidence & motivation towards your goal.
  5. Do it.  Take action, whatever it is, however small or inconsequential you think it may be, it all builds.  The more you build a body of evidence that you are making success the more will flow.  Momentum is hard to relinquish.
  6. Keep doing it & build that body of evidence that you are strong, powerful & capable.  If you’re dream is to be more confident in your body then go build evidence that you’re confident.  Keep going over and over.  Practice.  it is going to be uncomfortable but that’s ok.
  7. Surround yourself with like minded women who encourage you to be your best you.  On a recent shoot I took part in with Mermaid In England, a body positive swimwear brand, every single woman in the room had a reason to be there.  To prove to themselves and other people around them that they are confident and enough in their current body.
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Find little, tiny ways to build evidence that in fact you are confident in your body.  Now I’m not saying that you have to love every inch of it straight away, but beginning to build a body of evidence that you’re strong, capable, fierce and confident is the only way to feel that way.

Think about it - I was quick to be able to relay you a story about how I used to cover my body as often as I could (and I’m sure you empathised with a few of your own coming to the surface).  Well, you need to be able to recall that number of body confident stories about YOU plus a few to out number the less than beneficial memories.

I had dieted for 15 years, 7 of which I’d been a trainer and still didn’t feel worthy in my body.  And with that come a lot of old, BS stories that no longer serve me.  So I am spending the rest of my life building up a bank of evidence, that is stronger and more powerful than the ‘old’ stuff, to confirm in my mind who I am now.  And if you’re wanting to shift shame or guilt around your body you must do the same too.  

Start small, build up from the easy things to the larger things.  And then, each and every time you question yourself and your identity the evidence begins to lean in your favour - towards you being your most confident and best you.  If you’d like a helping hand with that, you can find me over on the gram here or take part in my #moderationmindset online challenge here.

ABOUT ME

THE GIRL BEHIND FITNESS FORSTER

My name is Amie and I am the face behind Fitness Forster.
I am a freelance recipe developer, content creator and qualified personal trainer. I developed this website to share my passion for healthy recipes, fitness and travel.

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