SO’s resident fitness guru Sarah Gorman reveals why anyone’s body confidence journey starts with loving yourself and the skin you’re in…
I have spoken about body confidence in the past but I have decided to write about it again. I believe that it’s a topic that needs to be brought to our attention time and time again because we all need to be reminded about how to gain or regain our confidence in whatever form that is for any one individual.
The culture of social media has meant that comparison is rife. Constantly seeing other people’s lives, bodies, achievements, careers has meant that many of us have an overwhelming feeling of failure. We think that we are not good enough, not doing enough – in short that we are simply not enough!
But do you know what? This really comes down to not having enough confidence in ourselves…
What is it about us that which allows us to knock our own confidence? To self-criticise and belittle things about ourselves? We listen to the voices in our heads so much that we give them a platform to perform from. But what if it is possible to flip that? To give the voices a name and shut them down?
There are a lucky few in society who seem to have a natural built-in confidence. Now, whether or not it’s genuine we may never know, but I would suggest that most people are not confident about some aspect of themselves or their body.
I run online classes via my BlendFit App which is all about creating classes that ‘Blend’ disciplines in order to have a bit of everything for everyone. But what I’m really trying to create is the idea that fitness is about more than the visual aspect of the body. It’s about gaining a level of health and strength within the body that gives us a sense and feeling of achievement and joy and most importantly confidence. I am not trying to change the shape of anyone’s body, rather I’m creating a foundation of health and strength for longevity and life.
My drive is to get my clients to have body autonomy and ownership of their body. To like the one they have. In fact, I’d go as far as to say to love the body they have. And when this happens then of course comes confidence…
It’s quite simple; eat well, drink sensibly, live your life and be happy – but in order to do this we need to stop comparing ourselves to others. Our bodies are all different, thank goodness, they are all different shapes and sizes and the work we do on them needs to happen in recognising that these differences make us who we are.
So yes, move your body, get fit and healthy, train to become strong and mobile in order to give yourself the gift of confidence.
