“How I found ‘beach body’ confidence”

My name is Bryony and I love being photographed in a bikini. This may not seem terribly confessional, given that the internet is covered in pictures of women posing seductively in two pieces, so let me be a little bit more detailed: My name is Bryony and I am a size 14 and I love being photographed in my bikini, with all my lumps, bumps and cellulite on display. In fact, the more unflattering the picture, the better, because it spreads an important message, one I like to shout out at the top of my lungs: That every body is a beach body, however it may happen to look.

This shouldn’t be radical at a time of body positivity, and yet it still is.

I have spent hundreds of thousands of hours analyzing my reflection in the mirror, obsessing over numbers on a scale, and generally wishing away a body that has given me life, fought off a deadly blood infection, and birthed a whole other human, among other things.

And yet it was only in my 30s, when I was at a particular low, that I realized what a heartbreaking waste of time this had been—a heartbreaking waste of time that so many women (and some men) feel they have to give their energy to. And so, at the age of 37, I vowed to choose joy. I went to the Maldives with my husband and daughter, where we’d spent our honeymoon, and decided I would love every moment of wearing a bikini. I signed up to do a marathon—and did it in nothing more than my sports bra and underwear. I ran through the streets of London, 200 pounds of my glorious flesh carrying me 26.2 miles to the finish line.

A year later, I gathered 700 women of all body experiences to do a 10k in their underwear through the same city. I remember looking around me, with tears in my eyes, at all the beautiful women who stood almost naked in front of Buckingham Palace, proud of their brilliant bodies. Some of those women had cancer. One of them died last summer. For the sake of my late, great friend, I have committed never to moan about my body again.

Through this work, I have learned that almost everyone feels the same crippling sense of shyness about themselves. It has been a kind of liberation, knowing that nobody is looking at me, because they are all too focused on their own imperfections. And if they are judging my body? Well, that says far more about them than it does about me.

I’ve made it my mission to lift others out of their tendency to body-bash themselves. Last month, I hosted the Big Body Confidence Beach Day Out. A group of us came for a day of empowering talks, culminating in us all getting into our swimwear together and running into the sea. Women arrived absolutely paralyzed with fear about putting on their bikinis. They ended the day running around freely, as if reborn. It was the most joyous experience, and one I am keen to repeat again and again.

For now, let me encourage you to create your very own Body Confidence Beach Day Out, perhaps with your friends. Get out there, and into your swimsuit. Go to the beach, or the pool, and own your body with pride. We will only ever get one of them, so let’s not waste a moment more hating on the miracle we’ve been given—lumps, bumps, cellulite, and all.