Real Women and Rio

I came across a great blog today by a woman who is not afraid to be herself, Trystan L. Bass at CorpGoth.  Her blog features a lot of amazingly fun clothes and commentary that is at times insightful and always entertaining.  I'll be checking in there again and admiring her sense of style soon.

One thing I love is that I happened across Trystan's blog by accident when I was searching for something else.  (Now I don't even remember what it was.)  But I saw a picture of her in her swimsuit with the title, "Size is just a number."  Indeed!  Size is just a number and still we all seem to get so uptight about it, don't we?  How many times have I purchased something that didn't feel good because of the number on it?  Oh no, I do NOT wear a 26.  I'll buy this 22 instead . . . It's time to stop engaging in that sort of nonsense.  Besides, even if 26 is a scary number, it's not as if anyone but me knows what it is anyway.  Really, when was the last time you took the collar of a friend's shirt and turned it inside out to see the size?  Never, right? 

I feel so inspired by Trystan's courage to post her real photos of herself with no apologies for not looking like a model.  She is beautiful and I hope everyone who sees her is open-minded enough to know that.  In fact, she goes on to encourage others to do the same.

Women shouldn't shun swimsuits if they don't look like fashion models or celebrities. There's a whole industry designed to make women freak out about "swimsuit season" & force us to go on crazy "bikini body" diets to lose some unrealistic number of pounds in an equally unrealistic number of days before hitting the beach. Fie on that nonsense, I say, fie!

And she's even been to Rio . . . which, as you know if you read here regularly, is close to my heart.  I have been nervous about how a heavy person would be received in Rio, where all the pictures are of perfect people like the following:

All the dieting and exercise in the world won't make me look like that, but it's okay.  That is not who I am and it's not who I aspire to be.  My goal is all about being healthy enough to enjoy life, to trek all over Brazil without getting out of breath constantly, and to add years to my life so I can spend them with the people I love - doing the things I love!  I would be absolutely delighted to look as good (and as confident) as Trystan does in her swimsuit.  But I am encouraged because she had this to say about Rio:

In fact, when I went to Rio, I was amazed & felt liberated to see large, voluptuous women, easily twice my size wearing thong bikinis & high heels, strutting down the Copacabana. These sassy women of substance had, I kid you not, scads of young, bronzed men following them like puppy dogs.

It's all about attitude, ladies. If you feel comfortable in your own body, you will exude confidence & sex appeal, & everyone else will feel it too.

Awesome!  Just awesome.

Next time you will see less of me!

--AnneK