I am so excited to announce this!!! I will be working on a Blog series called Swimming With Confidence, where we meet and talk to real girls, and women just like you and me who struggle with body confidence, or women who have overcome their fears with body image. 

Want to hear my story?! Well like it or not, here it comes. WARNING, you will absolutely relate.

There are so many different reasons why a woman can go through body dysmorphia, and my problem was just with myself. I didn't hate my body because I knew it was the body I was meant to have and Im very proud of my heritage that gave me this strong body. I just didn't want anyone else to see it in a bikini. I didn't judge other women either. I thought good for them for being able to rock that swimsuit. I just told myself NO every time. " Christina you are not going to let anyone see you".

Just always telling myself no, and that I would die inside if one person saw my tree trunk legs and little soft tummy. "Im not as "blessed" as other girls to have a bikini body" I always told myself. This is clearly before the phrase " EVERYBODY IS A BIKINI BODY" made it's way into the hearts of many beautiful souls.

I wore shorts and shirts to the beach with a swimsuit underneath knowing that the most anyone would see is me without a shirt on. Always praying I wouldn't feel forced to take off my shirt. Hoping other people didn't go into full swim so I didn't feel like the black sheep. I was a soccer player  growing up even as a young adult, so please for a second lets just picture this tan girl with abundant tan lines looking like one half of her body has never seen the light of day( which was probably true at the time). AMAZING RIGHT?

Now that you have that picture in your mind forever, It was terrible. I was in absolute fear of being in my swimsuit. At the time it was the worst feeling, but now I look back and think how silly was I? Sort of like in high school we care about what everyone thought and the minute we leave, we are make that face, you know the one, "why would I ever care what people think of me, pshhh". 

Ill spare you most the details of my journey, but long story short, I moved to Hawaii with this same fear, but loving the freedom people had there in their kinis and constantly wishing that was me. I Moved to Las Vegas, began working at a pool where I was forced to wear a bikini everyday. Keep in mind I was a size 6-8,vegan, and in decent shape. Day by day just wearing the bikini over and over 5 days a week is what did it.

My advice, is just do it. Don't just do it once. Do it as many times as you can, over and over. Interact with people in you bikini, dance, laugh, & play soccer. Do you in your bikini enough times and you won't know it any other way. 

I can't wait to share with you all the AMAZING women who are just like you and me.

<3 Christina