Body Confidence

This was something I actually wrote in a thread on the LoveHoney forums, but it turned into a proper essay, and I feel that it sums up my feelings on my body enough that it is worthy of posting here.


To answer the question in the thread title [do you like your naked self?], my reaction to my naked self is "meh, I'm alright". I do have some crazy confidence issues, both in terms of hating parts of my body that don't deserve it, and vice versa.

I am generally confident with my naked body, and much more with my naked body than when I am clothed. Clothes just never seem to fit right, especially around the waist. They seem to pull me in which gives me a bit of a muffin top sometimes. Naked though, I feel much more confident. I'm happy to prance around naked, I love it. I feel like it's just me, without any clothes defining who I am or making me feel bad or uncomfortable.

I am, however, bigger than I really want to be, but it's ALL on my belly. I wear a size 18 top, 16 trousers, but most of my knickers are size 12-14. This is why I hate clothes - tops seem to cling to me and really bring out the worst part of me. I look at myself naked in the mirror and love it most of the time - when I stand head on I have a pretty rocking hourglass going on. It's awful if I turn sideways though. I look like I should be in a diagram for how you look when you're X weeks pregnant! It does bother me a bit, but I generally let it slide. I'm not one of those people who really has serious body issues.

The scales bother me though. At the moment I'm dancing around between 11 and 12 stone. It came as a bit of a shock to me when I first weighed myself recently. I always used to be just over 10 stone, but have had my implant since then which I knew had made me put on weight. Still, I was actually quite pleased with my weight, as I hadn't actually put on as much as I thought I had. I've been getting better with my diet recently - I just don't have the appetite lately which helps, and I'm restricting myself to one 500ml bottle of coke a day (probably still too much, but alot better than I was doing before) and been drinking loads of water. Despite this though, my weight has actually gone up since the last time I weighed myself and I'm now closer to 12 stone than 11. It's stuff like this that knocks my confidence, even though I know it should be about the way I feel about my look rather than the number on the scales.

There are other things I dislike about myself. The other night I was on webcam whilst lying on my bed in the same way I'd be lying during sex, and noticed I had a bit of a double chin going on. I'm sure in that kind of position most people would, but it's sort of in the back of my mind almost every time we have sex now, and while it's not too difficult to dismiss once we get down to it, it's not a nice thing to think about just before sex. I also dislike my bum. I console myself on that one since my OH seems to like it, and it's behind me so I don't really get to see it that often!

In a way I feel quite lucky because it all goes to my belly. It's horrible viewing myself side on, but my arms and legs are pretty good in my opinion, and I've got a cracking pair of breasts on me too! Might sound cocky, but I do feel that confidence isn't about only about ignoring your flaws - it is about recognising your good bits too! A good corset will bring my belly in and leave me feeling sexy as hell, not that I don't feel that way when I'm naked anyway.

I like my tits, I like my legs, even if they're a bit paler than I'd like for this time of year. My arms are okay I guess. My hands are nice, long slim fingers. I dislike feet in general but I think mine are pretty enough. I don't freak when my OH wants to do things to them with his mouth! My hair can be a bit long and impractical at times, but it's nice and thick and looks good when I've had it cut. I have nice eyes, and when I keep my eyebrows maintained, I think it really opens up my whole face. On the odd occasion when I've worn makeup for shows and stuff, I'm always told I look fantastic and not just by my OH, but I've never felt insecure enough that I feel that I need to wear it every day. My eyebrows are really dark and thick, and while it makes them difficult to maintain sometimes, when I go to the salon to get them waxed, I'm told that some people pay to have their eyebrows and eyelashes dyed to be like mine! I have nice eyelashes too - everyone's always commented that I'll never need to wear mascara. My nose is a good shape, and my lips are okay too I guess.

So many positive things I can see about myself, it really helps to concentrate on them. When I look at the list of things I don't like - my belly poking out, the shape of my bum and a double chin when I lie down - it puts it all into perspective really!