The Secret to Having a Beach Body
Raise your hand if beach season still makes your brain pull out old magazine headlines from 2004. The weather gets warmer, and right on cue, so does the unsolicited body advice.
This is usually the part where I am supposed to tell you to cut carbs, drink greens that taste like lawn clippings, add copious amounts of protein to your coffee, download a workout app you will absolutely forget about in twelve days (WTF is 75 hard btw), and "get serious" about that bikini bod. Maybe I should recommend some biohacking while I'm at it or remind you that summer bodies are made in winter.
That’s a no for me, dawg!
Something about beach season has a way of dragging old body image baggage out of storage.
People who haven't thought much about their bodies in months suddenly find themselves standing in front of a mirror negotiating with a swimsuit. Sometimes there's grief in realizing your body doesn't look the way it used to. Maybe it changed after pregnancy, illness, chronic stress, getting older, or surviving some difficult shit. We all have a rich and meaningful body story.
It’s also important to acknowledge that many of us grew up during the peak of celebrity "beach body" culture. Nearly all magazine covers were dedicated to pointing out who "let themselves go." Jennifer Love Hewitt recently shared that she's never fully recovered from the relentless body shaming she experienced in 2007 after paparazzi photos of her in a black bikini were published, the magazine-cover version of viral. I remember that moment in time so vividly. That same year, Tyra Banks was brutally criticized for her "beach body." These were defining cultural moments that shaped an entire generation's views of bodies.
We learned about "problem areas" before we learned how to file taxes. Somewhere between low-rise jeans, shake weights, tabloid headlines, many of us were blasted with the message that summer wasn't meant to be experienced, it was meant to be prepared for, improved for, and shrunk for. We internalized the idea that the beach was an audition and that joy required prerequisites.
Then every year, the negotiations begin.
"I'll go on vacation once I lose weight."
"I'll buy the swimsuit when I fit into a smaller size."
"I'll take pictures next summer."
Until then, we hide. We wear cover-ups in ninety-five-degree weather. We volunteer to take the family photo so we don't have to be in it. We sit poolside while everyone else swims. We spend entire beach days conducting ongoing surveillance of our own bodies. Does anyone notice the cellulite? The stretch marks? The scars? The body hair? The softness? The stomach rolls?
Meanwhile, everyone else is trying to remember whether they reapplied sunscreen.
Diet culture has convinced us that the people around us are standing on the shore with clipboards, assigning participation scores.
Frankly, the real risk of getting in the ocean in a bikini has very little to do with your cellulite. Sharks love a snack, and baby, you're a snack. Stay alert.
In all seriousness, most people are too busy wrangling beach chairs, chasing down the Italian ice cart (my nephew’s favorite beach activity), and arguing about whose turn it is to carry the cooler to spend time thinking about your beach body. Diet culture taught us to believe that everyone else is always paying attention to our bodies. Most of the time, they are just trying to keep sand out of their sandwiches.
Now, if you're reading this and thinking, "That's easy for you to say, my anxiety isn't the beach, it’s the neighborhood pool," I get it. The beach is often strangers you’ll never see again. The community pool is where you might run into your neighbor, your kid's teacher, your ex's cousin, the overly competitive pickleball couple, and that one person who always seems to know everyone's business. It can bring up a different kind of self-consciousness, one rooted in familiarity and the fear of being judged by people whose opinions feel harder to dismiss. If this resonates with you, please know that you are not shallow or overly sensitive. You are a human with feelings and a body in a world with a brutal resurgence of harsh diet culture. We are also wired to care about belonging and social acceptance, straight up.
And also, respectfully, the judgy neighbors can suck it.
Their discomfort with bodies existing in public is not your responsibility to manage. You do not have to miss out on adult swim at the pool, lazy afternoons in the sun, or watching your kids yell, "Mom! Watch this!" because someone else might have thoughts about your appearance. People are allowed to have opinions, you are allowed to keep swimming.
Put on your oversized sunglasses, grab your pool noodle, and choose peace anyway.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions about body image healing is that one day you'll wake up, look in the mirror, and suddenly love everything you see. As nice as that would be, that's not how it works for most people.
Healing is actually surprisingly ordinary.
It's deciding your body doesn't have to be your favorite thing about the day. It's noticing the critical thoughts show up and choosing not to hand them the megaphone.
Sometimes it sounds like, "I don't love how I look today, but I'm getting in the water anyway."
Or, "This swimsuit isn't my favorite, but my nephew isn't going to remember what I wore, he’s going to remember that I played with him.”
Or, "I'm uncomfortable, but I'm not going to let that discomfort make all of my decisions."
Body image work is about getting to the point where your body isn't the main character in every memory.
It's realizing halfway through the beach day that you forgot to worry about the nonexistent body patrol because you were too busy laughing. It's jumping into the pool before you've had time to overthink it and about seeing a picture of yourself afterward and noticing your smile before you notice your stomach.
Those moments may seem small, but they're actually the whole point. You don't have to feel confident to start participating. Sometimes confidence shows up after you've decided your life is worth showing up for.
The people who love you benefit more from your presence than your perceived perfection. Children especially notice this. They notice when adults constantly hide from cameras, when we apologize for our bodies, when we sit on the sidelines waiting to become "acceptable." Children also notice joy, freedom, and engagement. They notice the adults who jump into the waves anyway. Whether we realize it or not, we teach other people what it means to inhabit a body.
Imagine looking back on these summers years from now. I don't think you'll miss the time you spent worrying about your thighs. I think you'll cherish the memories of yourself laughing with the people you love, rolls and all.
You deserve memories that include you in them. Your life is happening right now, not twenty or however many dumb pounds from now.
So if beach season has stirred up some complicated feelings, it probably means you've spent years swimming (with diet culture sharks) in messages that told you your body size determined how much fun you were allowed to have.
Thankfully, those messages don't get to make the rules anymore!
This brings me to the highly anticipated secret to having a beach body:
Step 1: Have a body.
Step 2: Put a bikini (or swim trunks, one-piece, speedo, board shorts, or whatever makes you feel most like yourself) on it.
Step 3: Go live your life.
That's it. That's the whole plan.
Here's my loving nudge from a therapist who's had enough of diet culture's nonsense:
Put on the suit and get in the water.
Eat ice cream AND Italian ice.
Build the sandcastle in your bikini.
Take the picture.
Get in the water.
Your body doesn't need to earn a seat at the beach or the community pool. It just needs sunscreen.
I'll say it one more time for the people in the back:
How to have a beach body:
Have a body.
Put on the swimsuit.
Go live your life.
If body image concerns are keeping you from fully participating in your life, you don't have to weather them alone. Therapy can help you challenge the messages of diet culture, build a more compassionate relationship with your body, and make more room for the things that matter most to you. If you're ready to begin that work, reach out to learn more about working with The Therapy Hub.