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About: 10 Stylish Resolutions for 2016

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Body musings

anne

Veteran

These 2 of Angie's resolutions have really made me think;

Don't compare and
despair”. Compete with the best version of your current self, and no one else.

Dress the body you have right now.

I grew up with a mum who was pretty slim (maybe 100-110 pounds at 5"3) but would never own to being so - because she had many Asian friends who were even smaller.

I married into a family who were all VERY skinny in their early 20's. Skinny frames and classic ectomorphs. Whereas I have a healthy appetite (I used to get hungry at meals at their place!) and a normal weight, was reasonably muscular, and not tiny in frame. It was easy to see myself as big, particularly as I have such a small bust, and felt the rest of my body should match.

Now I have three dear daughters who look like they are taking after me - they are slimmish (in fact the middle one was very skinny, but has put on more muscle since her coliac diagnosis and going GF), have huge appetites, are active and strong - and have my straight shoulders, long torso and muscly legs. Of course at this stage of their life, and to me as their mother, they are beautiful!

I am really working to see myself in the positive way I see them. When I was a teenager, and hating my thighs, my dad said I was being almost blasphemous (we are both Christians and I guess he meant something like that I shouldn't be hating God's good creation)

I wanted to thank Angie and particularly some recent posters on my YLF threads encouraging me to embrace my small busted looks. And thanks to anyone who has read this novel!

Body Type

28 replies

Latest reply was from anne

Adelfa

Veteran

Hi Anne, body image stuff can be so painful! I know this doesn't fix anything, but I've always thought what a lovely figure you have!

I find that with a lot of work I can see some improvement in my body image, but then if I get stressed or distracted all the old negative self-talk comes back. So I guess it has to be an ongoing effort.

I remember once years ago my mom was stressing about how she'd look in her bathing suit that she was buying to swim with her preschool grandchildren. I, hoping that the day would come when I would no longer worry about how I looked in a swimsuit, said to her, "Mom, you don't have to worry about that! You're a grandma!"

Mom came right back at me with, "We'll see how you feel about it when you're a grandma!"

Well, now I'm a grandma. And mom was right. I'll just have to keep working at it!

chirico (Chiara)

(website)

Veteran

This post really resonates with me! I never liked my tights, they are bigger than the rest of my frame I think. But then I came to realize they could run, walk, jump, take me everywhere I understood I should be grateful - probably your dad meant this!
Plus, I have inherited them from my mom's side. They are farmer's tights, the ones that allowed granma to walk to the fields and chase her hen while American tanks were passing in her town (they stopped to let her chase her hen, always loved this story!). So, what's not to love?
I think it's important to know what we don't want to emphasize, and work on that while picking what to wear. But also, to love the body we have.

Cococat

Veteran

It's interesting how we see ourselves compared to how others see us.

FWIW, I have never thought of you as having a 'small busted look'. You seem to have a strong well balanced shape that can pretty much wear anything and look good.

Anonymous

It can be trying to be small-busted in a society that so values the other end of the breast-size spectrum. I come from a long line of small-busted women, on both sides of the family. I've been self-conscious about it from time to time, but my mom always stressed that inner beauty was more important, and I guess that wisdom kicked in at some point because I never even considered implants. At this point, I'm just glad "the girls" are healthy and up where they're supposed to be!

CocoLion

(website)

Veteran

My favorite Angie resolution was the "don't compare/despair" too.

I appreciate your honest and vulnerable discussion of your body image here. Anne when I see you I admire your long slim torso and square shoulders. I think a smaller bust leaves more room to see ones waist and what is more feminine that a trim waist. A big bust is not the only marker of femininity! And I know you have that perky backside too 'cause I've seen it in pictures. However I know the grass is always greener -- we look at what others have and fail to appreciate what we do.

anne

Veteran

Adelfa, thanks for the lovely compliment! And I can relate to it's being an ongoing effort. I certainly have had times of being better at this. My current struggles are partly because DH finally got around to putting up my full length mirror (after about 6 years) and now I can see my bottom half - which I often sort of conveniently forgot!!

I think I can understand both what you were saying to your Mum "the kids love you with no regard to how you look" and her feelings. I'm sure my Mum still struggles with her looks from time to time ( I KNOW she struggles with shopping - she passed that difficultly on to me) Mum, BTW was very positive about my appearance - I don't remember a single bad thing that she said about my body (I do remember her telling me that men like big bottoms! - and that was not a message you heard in Australia back then) and I finally came around to following her advice about colours - she is olive skinned like me.

Chirico - that was a lovely story about your Grandma and the hens!! You are right about how useful our thighs are. Another thing I tell myself is that at the gym I see practically no women with really thin thighs.

CocoC - thanks! I think you'd see the small bust if I showed my pics from the side!

Xtabay - I've never considered implants either (padded bras are another story though!!) and I don't mind them in themselves. But when I put clothes on there's a pretty high chance of them not fitting in the bust area, if they fit most of the rest of me.

Maneera

(website)

Veteran

Anne, I can't tell you how often I've looked at your WIW pictures and wished I looked like you! It's 100% true!

But I can understand how you feel. As someone who is on the other side of the spectrum with a very large bust that almost dominates everything else and makes me super-conscious, I can imagine how you feel. Everything else on my body gets dwarfed by my breasts....or Atleast, that's how it is in my head. Yet, when I tell people that I have problematic large boobs that make it impossible to sleep without a bra, no one ever believes me the first time! They look at me and say "Where? Your bust looks balamced". And that's my point! More often than not, these body image issues are way bigger a deal in our heads. Others don't even notice them.

You have an amazing body, Anne. You look skinny (to me) and can wear anything and everything. Slim waist, long torso, strong shoulders, shapely legs.....you're VERY feminine and look so so wonderful in skirts & dresses. Some times it's hard to see what others see in you once you've made up your mind, but this is one time when you will simply have to trust us YLF'ers when we say that you have a great, healthy, fit and feminine body

Helen11

Veteran

Anne, you look great! I do think it is so important to recognise that all bodies are beautiful in all their shapes and sizes. I am in awe of what your body can do, too. You can run 5km! High levels of fitness, low body fat and larger breasts don't usually go together : /
I have daughters, too, and I want them to grow up feeling proud of their bodies, and not waste time agonising over what could be changed.
Didn't someone say, "it's not you, it's the clothes"?!

Summer

Veteran

Anne, I think this is the most important message to all women, whatever their age, height or shape. It makes me so sad that many beautiful women and girls strive to fit into some idealised version of perfection, or try to emulate celebrities, models or even their best friend, whose figure they see as somehow better than their own. If only they could focus on their strengths instead of dwelling on the one part of them that they see as less than perfect. Most of us only notice a "fault" if it is pointed out to us, and even then we don't see it the same way. Anyway, perfection, if it exists at all, is rather boring.
I'm sorry you've had negative feelings about your own shape, but I know it can be hard to throw off such deep-rooted self-opinions. When I see your photos, I see a beautiful, healthy woman with an enviable figure, who also knows just how to dress that figure to its very best. From what I've seen of your lovely daughters, they are equally gorgeous, as I'm sure you tell them often.
Tape your new resolution up on your mirror, and repeat it every day.
Here's to a beautiful,stylish, healthy and happy 2016!

Bijou

Veteran

This is a wonderful and thought provoking post. Often it is only in appreciating the beauty in your children that you appreciate your own. I am sure your Dad thought you were perfect, in the same way you see your daughters.

Joyce B

Veteran

Anne, I think you have a lovely figure and you always look fab. This goes to show that even when other people look great you never know how they are feeling about themselves.
There was a picture on the web some time ago with a teenager showing the message "UGLY" and in small letters saying " U gotta love yourself more".
Sometimes kids have more wisdom than adults, his mom must be very proud of him.
I also loved Angie's encouraging and very positive resolutions.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

Anne, you are lovely, inside and out, and your daughters are lucky girls if they take after you. Your example is more powerful even than all the cultural nonsense they will be subjected to (just like all of us). But I hope for all our girls' sake that they will have an easier time of it than our generation did, that beauty standards will become broader and more accepting.

I know some of what you feel -- having spent a lifetime looking over my flat breasts to a stomach that sometimes stuck out way beyond them and thighs that often also did!! It's a weird feeling. But becoming more fit truly helped me with this. I simply don't care any more if my body is working for me. That's what is important. Clothes can be altered -- plus, we can buy the styles that work best for us and ignore the ones that don't. We can highlight features we love about our bodies and enjoy that. And we can glory in our physical strengths.

Anonymous

I just wanted you to know that I sometimes feel disproportionate because of my small breasts too. I end up looking chunky on the bottom There are so many things you can do with clothing to mask these issues that I feel like it's not the end of the world--we are the lucky ones, Anne, with good muscles and no boobs to jiggle up and down when we exercise.

The only time I feel self-conscious is at the beach, and my solution there is to lie down, swim, or crouch over (a sandcastle) to minimize having people look at me full-length and upright. I do walk around on the beach, but I do feel self-conscious about my body, it's true.

I think it's ok to not totally love your body. There's a lot of the message, "Love the body you're in!" but for me, this is just not realistic. My message to myself is, "Sorta like the body your in and workaround problem areas, and avoid prancing around in a bathing suit". I think the second message is far more healthy because it promotes the idea that being 'just ok' is OK.

The other thing is that a beautiful body is one that moves well.

The particular yoga studio that I go to seems to attract a lot of young, slim 20-somethings (or maybe even teens-I can't tell anymore!). It's so easy to compare myself to others in this situation because everyone is wearing tight-fitting clothes and there's nowhere to hide imperfections. But one thing I noticed is that, I move gracefully through the poses, and my posture is good. And that actually makes me look pretty good next to the younger slimmer 'perfect' girls.

Also, just the knowledge that I have a good amount of muscle makes me feel good about myself because I know that I'll continue to look more youthful as I age. I do believe having muscles (under some fat) makes people look healthy and attractive.

All this to say that the beauty in your body is not just about your fat levels. It's also about how tall you hold yourself, how gracefully you move, and how deliberate your movements are.

I notice grace of movement in men and I find it attractive.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Anne, thanks for sharing. It all makes much more sense.

You've been with YLF for YEARS and I've always wondered why you thought you were a lot bigger than you are - having quite a disproportionate perception of your lovely self. You're small, fit, strong, slim and healthy. Don't think otherwise. You're perfect as you are. Don't think otherwise. The size of your bust and thighs are wonderful. Don't think otherwise.

APPRECIATE your body - and it's more important to do so with each passing year as your body ages. If you don't, the bitterness will fester and that's unstylish.

You passed your lovely body onto your beautiful girls. I know you'll praise their bodies till the cows come home - in the same way that I will continue to praise yours.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Well, count me as another who has always thought you seem to have an enviable, slim figure!

Trust me, big boobs are not always easy to dress, and I always feel like my big chest and big hips/thighs make me look, well, big, despite having a smallish frame (not height, but bone structure). At any weight, I have an undeniably curvy figure, which does not photograph particularly well or fit into today's supermodel slim standards, but oh well. It's what I've got, and it's made it through half a century of life no worse for the wear, biked across thousands of miles, run hundreds more, and walked on several continents, so how bad can it be?

I understand where you are coming from. My mom was very slender and very small-framed (5'7" and 125 lbs until pregnancy). I am not quite so small framed, and my weight hovers 20 lbs over hers (10 over where I'd like to be). I know I cannot compare myself by her standard because my body is different, but sometimes it's hard to eliminate that old recording in our brains that assigns a certain standard.

I relate to Aldelfa's and chirico's remarks. I'm getting better about accepting my body ("loving" it may be a stretch), but appreciating what it can do rather than how it looks has been a big part of that. I'm about to board a plane shortly for a vacation that will involve lots of hours in a bikini, so yeah, this is definitely on my mind lately!

rachylou

Veteran

The only thing that makes me grind my teeth is how short waisted I am. I look terrible in a bikini and then everyone asks me why I'm wearing the one piece grandma bath suit. I console myself with the thought that I'd look great on a nudist beach, lol... If only I could stand looking at all those naked people. I mean, look, the naked human form is not good looking. We're not cute like, oh say, Lilypup the dog... Humans need bigger ears and some fur.

gradfashionista

(website)

Veteran

Adding to Angie's note about appreciating yourself as you are, I think it's important for all of us to recognize that, barring steroids, extreme weight loss, or menopause, our body shapes remain consistent with weight fluctuations. Sure, I like how I look 10lb less than my current, but my shape remains the same. My best version of myself isn't the scale number, no matter how manipulative it can be, but how I feel, and what I can do with the body I have now that I couldn't a decade ago.

Firecracker (Sharan)

Veteran

Anne, you are so wise to take your attitude toward your daughters' bodies as an example for looking at your own. I don't have daughters, so when I find myself starting to be self-critical, I try to remind myself: "What would you say to (or about) your best friend? How would you talk to her?"
And I agree, Angie came up with a fantastic list of resolutions!

JAileen

Veteran

Anne, when I see you, I see a beautiful, healthy young woman. I don't see anything else.

I also have a small bust. I don't mind one bit. Friends of mine with big busts complain of back aches. Plus, I sleep on my stomach. How could I do that if I had a big bust? I broke my arm when I was a child and had to sleep on my back due to the cast. I didn't sleep for a couple of days.

Lyn D.

Veteran

Angie said it all and so well Anne!
I have found that getting older and having daughters makes it much easier to appreciate our own shape- it is so important to show our children by example that we are happy in our own skin and accepting of others just the way they are!

Brooklyn

Veteran

Well it just goes to show that everyone has body issues. I thought that you are so slim and pretty that you wouldn't have any concerns. I exercise a lot and have a strict diet (despite having a healthy appetite like you!) but I can't change some body fundamentals. I have a large frame and big bones (big hands, big feet and a big head - literally!). I have to wear men's hats because women's won't fit me. I have muscular legs. I will never have slim thighs. I am definitely not perceived as fine, graceful, delicate or feminine. A man is more likely to ask me to help him lift something than to open a door for me. Ha Ha! All this is by way of saying we all have issues. I am sure everyone on this forum could list some. I think you have to work with what you have got and, much more importantly as you get older, to be happy that it is all working And I do agree that Angie's advice is spot on. It is also relevant to age, style and the other areas in which women tend to compare themselves.
ETA: just wanted to reiterate - I think you look great

catgirl

Veteran

Trust me, Anne - there are as many fit issues with larger busts as smaller. Gapping, cleavage, stretch, bra marks... not to mention the complete inconvenience if you enjoy sports!

You are perfect just as you are. Truly. The picture of you in your mother's vintage print dress always stands out in my mind for showing what a knock-out you are. That is all.

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

Anne seeing my body repeating itself in my daughters has helped me accept that this is just the way I am - it is not my "fault" in the pernicious way society sometimes seems to imply. I have never liked prancing around in a bathing suit but have forced myself to go ahead and wear one for their sake - and you know what, it's fine and lots more fun this way.

Beth Ann

Veteran

I love the way you battle the harmful messages with the strong, happy images of your daughters! I understand a bit --- being larger framed and struggling with weight and an insta-bust that appeared when I had my son -- at age 38. My husbands family is also tiny, and rather judgmental of larger people, although never openly of me.

There is no one perfect body type, and bodies are not required to meet any standard of perfection to be beautiful and loved. You've made efforts to treat your body well, even though it can be difficult to find the time to exercise and eat well, and it shows. Recently, I've so enjoyed seeing your WIW -- you know how to make wonderful gifted garments your own, and you're looking great!

I've found that what I've learned from Angie and others on the forum has helped me dress in a way that allows me to look my best and, more importantly, to present myself in a way that brings me pleasure. I'm working on avoiding what I call "camo dressing," which involves trying to hide flaws. Trying to hide is never helpful. If I hide, will I teach my daughter, or other women, that they should hide, too? I'd much rather them see me enjoying life!

anne

Veteran

Thanks so much for all your thoughful responses. I've been popping in and mulling over them - as is my wont, I'm not good at immediate replies and need to think them over a LOT.
Thanks to all who have said encouraging and positive things about my shape. I was encouraged! And I can also confess to the odd spot of envy of the figures of people on YLF too, including those who have contributed to this thread. Thanks for the reminder that everyone has their own issues that usually loom much greater for them than anyone else.

CocoLion - I think we must have been writing at the same time as I didn't see your comment. Thank you!
Maneera and Jaileen and Una. I should clarify that I have never wanted a *large* bust. For a few months after my daughters were born I had quite full C cups and that felt big enough! And if there is one body type modifier I have really learnt about from the experiences of women here on the forum it's the discomforts of a large bust.

GF - wise words. And I'm certainly in awe of what you can do with your body, when I read about your weightlifting

Sharan, Summer, Bijou, Shevia, Lyn D, Joyce B, Beth Ann, and Helen11 thanks for the encouragement re using my attitude to my daughters to help mine - I see that I'm not alone in this thought process, though it only occurred to me recently. (and Lyn I kind of sent you what turned out to be an early draft of this post recently - sorry for the repetition)

Helen11 - according to a health evalualtion I had in October I do have too much body fat! (hopfully a bit less now - I'll find out next week) The excess was in my arms - none on the bust. You are right though, that most slim people aren't natually busty. I think my feeling, when youngers was that I should be thinner everywhere else if my bust was so small (to put it in concrete terms, my measurements for both hips and thighs are 4 to five inches bigger than my bust. In dress sizes about 2.5 bigger is pretty standard, I think.)

Brooklyn - I do have to work at it too! Especially since I tipped over into the fourth decade, and since I got my celiac diagnosis.

Rachylou I look not bad naked either. And hate shopping for bathing suits!

Suz - I know I can always count on you for body shape empathy! Glad to hear of your own positivity. And thanks Smittie for the empathy and realism. And I think experientially you might be right about muscles and aging well.

Beth Ann and Janet- thanks for the empathy re family. I should point out that though they were all very skinny, in their early 20's DH's family are not now, in general. And I'm afraid my DH is one of those skinny men with a bit of a tummy, which isn't supposed to be very healthy. People still think he is slim and fit though!

And also they just have different eating habits (at celebratory family meals anyway) and tend to fill up on lollies or chips afterwards - and fussy old me doesn't eat chips or many varity lollies! My eating has calmed down in the last 20 years anyway, so I eat more in line with the amount they do.

Lastly Angie - thanks for your continual encouragement and praise over the years. And glad if I have enlightened you a bit

RoseandJoan

Veteran

Lovely to read your body positive thoughts Anne, you have always looked a picture of health in my eyes, slim and toned. Given strong is the new skinny you and your girls are ahead of the game .

anne

Veteran

Jules! ! How great to hear from you! ! Thank you very much.

anne

Veteran

Manny wrote that she thought I "can wear anything and everything". This is so not the case. I find it very hard to wear trousers for instance - haven't bought any for around 6 years!!! And while I certainly branch out into JFE looks, I often have have to really search to find things. Eg - I wear skirts a lot, but a tapered pencil skirt in a woven fabric will almost never fit me . I'd love to wear a wrap dress, but can't fill out the top half of them.

And while I appreciate your kind thoughts on my body, I also know that I can look (yes I know it is a loaded word around here) frumpy very easily.

Angie and the forum have been very helpful in combatting the latter, of course!