Has feeling too fat, too old, or too blah prevented you from enjoying sex?
It’s hard to bare your bod and get intimate when you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin.
Many women feel this way occasionally—I know I have—but others have let a negative self-image stop them from feeling good about making love altogether.
Look, few of us resemble Angelina or J-Lo, but that doesn’t mean we can’t feel as hot as a Sports Illustrated supermodel in the sack; it just requires a change in thinking. To feel your most sexy self, keep these uplifting suggestions in mind.
1. Be Your Body’s Biggest Fan
A woman feels better about her body when she appreciates the things that are right about it, instead of focusing on what’s wrong. “See your body as sexy now!” urges Pamela Madsen, the curvaceous author of “Shameless: How I Ditched the Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure & Somehow Made it Home in Time to Make Dinner.” “If you can’t see yourself as sexy in your roundness, no one else will.”
This requires a mindset that many of us are unfamiliar with, as Andrea Gaines, a Life and Wellness Coach from Evanston, acknowledges. “We’re never taught by our mothers: you should take in this beautiful creature that you have. A woman can start by looking at her body, appreciating it, touching it lightly, noticing: wow, that’s a beautiful curve right there, my skin is so smooth, my thighs are milky soft, my breasts are so voluptuous.”
2. Put Self-Care on Your To-Do list
To honor your body, you need to take care of it. It’s not frivolous vanity to treat your self well; it’s essential. To feel your sexy best you need sleep, nourishing food, fresh air and movement, and mama, you need pampering.
“When you’re not taking care of yourself, it has a draining effect on your energy. Women who are tired are not really energized to make love,” says Gaines. “Guys don’t care about body weight, they care about the energy you give them. “
Madsen agrees. “Take your time to create your own sexiness for you. Do you need a new hairstyle or makeup? I’ve seen women who are 300 pounds and they are frankly gorgeous. They’ve got their lipstick on, their hair is done and they are shimmering. They’ve done their work and the world is their oyster.”
3. Become a Pleasure Seeker
The coolest thing about having a body isn’t how it looks; it’s how it feels. Gaines advises women to stop living in their heads, slow down, and get into their bodies. “A woman who is not living a pleasured life is not going to want sex.”
Pleasure comes in all kinds of forms. A bath, a fragrant garden, a ripe peach, a cool breeze caressing the skin – your body is perfectly built to experience these yummy sensations, as well as sex, right now.
“Many people who struggle with their weight dream about what they’ll get in life when they’re thin. What about right now?” asks Pamela Madsen. “Just because you’re fat doesn’t mean you can’t get what you want.” She laughs. “Trust me.”
As Wilmette mom of three Georgette says, “I figure if Rosie O’Donnell is getting some, I should be getting some too.”
4. Consider Your Partner
Gaines often sees clients use feelings of self-rejection as excuses to stay closed off sexually from their man, which is actually quite selfish.
“That mindset of , ‘I feel fat, ugh, get away from me, I feel gross, don’t touch me,’ it’s very self-absorbed. You’re collapsing into yourself and aren’t open to what is around you. It’s narcissistic,” she says.
Hey, there’s another person and a whole relationship to consider here. Isn’t that more important than a little jiggle in your milky soft thighs?
5. Decide to Feel Good
Madsen sums it up like this. “The only person who is really blocking us from getting what we want in our bodies, just as they are, is us. So put on your dancing clothes, ladies. Be the little engine that could. You can!
