I was so looking forward to my Saturday.  It started off with a double bus journey to Tooting to watch the other half take part in the Cold Water Swimming Championships, 30m in 1 degree. The place was packed full of all shapes, sizes and ages plunging into the ice-cold water, for fun. Just brilliant.

This was the amuse bouche, the main event of the day was a trip to the cinema to watch Embrace.  I set off with lots of spare time so I could sit in a café for longer then 15mins and have a lovely lunch in lovely Greenwich.  To cut a long story short I ended up in Nandos! A first. The film was showing in an Industrial Park and my choices were Prezzo, Pizza Hut or Nandos.  I was being a snob, but you know what, they do one thing and they do it very well . Lesson learnt, be the master of your thing!

Next stop EMBRACE is a film about body image,  by a Mum called Taryn Brumfitt.  After having 3 kids, she hated her body, wet herself on a netball court and decided to get control and enter a body building competition.  At the contest she had a ‘beautiful’ body but she hated it, it took too much effort, time and energy and here is where the turnaround started. If you can see this film you must  – here are a few of my reflections from it.

Surround yourself with people and things that make you feel good – It’s hard to avoid the ubiquitous images of ‘fake’ girls that products want us to believe are attainable.  But we can stop buying magazines, stop following the Kardashians or anyone for that matter in a bikini on Instagram.  I made a decision as soon as my youngest arrived in the world, to surround myself with positive women who inspired me and it’s worked.  Who and what we surround ourselves by is contagious not only to us, but our families.  So be positively contagious about healthy bodies and if you’re not quite there yet, find the people who are and they’ll teach you how.

Don’t wait for the big four to change your life – Divorce, Death, Disease and Redundancy are big catalysts for change.  But they’re pretty major things to happen to kick start a new you.  Nigel Marsh in Australia has started a great naked swim event called Skinny Sydney which aims to ‘lift the human spirit’ in a less traumatic way then the big four.  You also don’t need to spend a small fortune.  Last year I was looking for business coaching and had a session with one guy.  He emailed afterwards with an extortionate figure and  I almost signed up.   But after one minutes reflection decided ‘you know what, of course my business will work if I spend that much money on coaching, as I can’t afford it not to.  So how’s about I just make it work anyway?’ You’ve got this, you can totally change how you feel about yourself without a drama or spending stacks of money!

There is no ‘perfect’ – of the about 3.2billion women in the world we can’t all be white, blonde, 6ft and, 17 with a thigh gap.  So why is that all that we see?  There are a few brands and magazines out there which are different, but generally that’s the image we see the most.  As much as we teach our children tolerance for diversity and no doubt pride ourselves on our non-judgmental stance when it comes to race, religion or wealth this also needs to carry over into body shape.  Fat isn’t lazy and thin isn’t beautiful or good.  Womanhood is something to be embraced and celebrated – our bodies are beautiful.

I had a wonderful Saturday which ended up in a ‘trendy’ bar for a few beers and arriving home just as the kids had gone down and the house was tidy!

Needless to say I’m applying to be one of the Body Image Movements Global Ambassadors!  I’ll keep you all posted.