How To Feel Confident In A Bikini and Look Sexy At The Beach!

By shallon On May 23, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Summer is a double edged sword for me. While I’m THRILLED to be out of the grey hellscape that is winter, my relief is short lived because soon it’s time to start panicking about how I look in a bikini.

So if you’re like me, here’s a summer sexiness survival guide with some tips on how to look good in a bikini, whether you have one month, one week or one hour to prepare!

ONE MONTH OUT: Revamp!

In 3-5 weeks you can seriously change your body. It won’t be super easy or buckets of fun, but cowboy up for that small amount of time and focus on doing these things…

Hire a nutritionist

Controlling my food portions isn’t not exciting or instantaneous but it DOES work. A nutritionist helps me monitor my eating, since having a good body is 70% food, 30% exercise. I know getting a nutritionist sounds expensive and extreme, but if you’re a teenager you’re still on your parents’ insurance, which means you may only pay $10 copay per visit to a nutritionist and it is the BEST MONEY EVER SPENT.

No nutritionist? Log what you eat to see when your snacking weak spots are!

Read The Zone Diet

It gives you a really good overview of what foods are good to eat and why carbs can be bad and fat can be good. Even if you don’t want to do the diet, it’s still really informative and easy to understand!

Grab a used copy on eBay or Amazon for only a few bucks!

Stop Drinking Soda

When I cut out soda and did the Zone Diet, I lost 15 pounds in three weeks! Diet sodas are bad too because really, they’re all chemicals. That’s super gross. And all those bubbles make you gassy and fat and bloated. How sexy!!

So much yuck.

HIIT The Gym

Get it, HIIT? That stands for High Intensity Interval Training, which burns the most calories in the shortest amount of time AND helps build lean muscle. A 20 minute HIIT workout does more than 45 agonizing minutes on a treadmill. Google it and find similar classes at your local gym or YMCA. Always eat a little bit (half a protein bar, toast with a wee bit of PB) before HIIT workouts otherwise you’ll get sick

20 minutes of work for a whole summer of sexiness!

Or, if you can’t afford a gym, download the Nike Training Club app for about $10. You can choose your workout (cardio, strength, slimming, core, etc) and set your own music and you can do almost all of them at home with basically no equipment. It gives you a HELL of a workout, believe me. Also, be sure to incorporate planks into your routine since that’s what gives you ab muscles you can actually see!

Save $10 A Week
If you can amass $40-50 you can buy just about all of my must-have beachside looks that will boost your confidence!

This little piggy WENT SHOPPING BITCHES!

ONE WEEK OUT: Shop!

I talk about this in my How To Feel Confident In A Bikini vid on YouTube, but it bears repeating: if you don’t like where your body is at, make yourself feel as good as possible by perfecting every other aspect of your beach look. If your outfit, accessories, skin and makeup are all on point, then you won’t be so focused on your figure flaws–and neither will anyone else!

Formulate Your Summer Look

Mine is very “Riviera glam”–I love flowly caftan coverups, gold wedges, bangles, hoops, and of course, big fancy hats.

TOTES my look!

That look works for me and where I vacation, but if you’re in high school or college, not so much. Instead, think about what your summer style is–festival? boho? surfer girl? preppy?–and really go for it. Find a celeb icon who embodies your summer style and spend an afternoon googling around for how to replicate her look for less. I find almost ALL my clothes at TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, and Payless has terrific beachy shoes!

Skip The Shorts

Whatever style you go for MAKE IT A DRESS. No shorts. Shorts are for boys and gym teachers, and rompers never fit right. And if you’re not sure what kind of style vibe you want to give off, opt for a neutral cover up dress, like this one, which could be anything from preppy to glam depending on the accessories, shoes and hat!

From Target, $17!

Select a Scent

A sexy summer perfume is an absolute must. Victoria’s Secret has great summer body mists, and I also love Beach by Bobbi Brown, Born in Paradise by Escada and actually (embarrassingly) Jennifer Aniston’s perfume! But a great affordable option is Saint Barts Soleil by Mark and it’s small enough to travel with too!

Saint Barts Soleil by Mark.Avon, $24

While you can get away with a cheap cover up/hat/shoes, you actually want to invest in a good fragrance; if a perfume is cheaply made (like, from the drug store) it breaks down in the heat and can smell sour and rank. Not hot.

Practice Your Walk & Posture

You know what a stickler I am for bad posture and clunking around in heels. If you plan to make wedges part of your summer style, make sure you can walk in them. Shoulders back, thumbs pointing forwards, boobs out. Otherwise you’ll look like Mr Burns skulking around the cabana.

Eeeexcellent

Not in a tanning bed, obvs, but start applying self tanner in light layers. If you wait until the day before your beach/pool excursion, you’ll be tempted to slather it on too thick to get dark ASAP and it’ll be streaky and terrible. Every other day add a light layer of a gradual self tanner, this Neutrogena one is my favorite and totally goof-proof.

Neutrogena Micro-Mist, $13 at the drug store

Cut The Salt

Salty foods (diet and regular sodas, canned soups, microwave meals, pasta sauce, ramen and basically anything from a restaurant) makes you retain water and bloat. Women can hold up to 9 POUNDS to water weight! Can you imagine dropping that much just by cutting back on sodium?? Read food labels and if something has more than 20% sodium, skip it. Drink a lot of green or detox tea and water to get you at your absolute thinnest!

Yogi detox tea, $3.50

Get a Mani-Pedi!

Boys seriously notice nasty feet. Enough said.

It’s really hard to give yourself a pro-looking pedi, so invest in your feet with a salon pedicure!

THE DAY OF: Work It!

Ok, you’re tanned, de-bloated, nails did, and smellin’ good. But there’s still that pesky issue of YOUR BODY. Here’s how to make the best of it:

Make A Deal With Yourself

Put a 24 hour freeze on body angst and just, almost as an experiment, pretend like you haven’t a body issue in the world! If 24 hours is too long, try 10 minutes. And spend 10 minutes free from the hell of obsessing about how you look. You may feel relieved, then happier, then more magnetic then discover that SURPRISE! people do like you better when you’re not so focused on tugging at your bikini, keeping that towel wrapped around you, or constantly poking at your thighs. The more attention you call to your flaws, the more people will see them.

My beach idol is Beyonce because she never looks like she’s thinking of ANYTHING but having fun. No stress, no self-consciousness. If she does worry about her body, she doesn’t do it in public. A true It Girl!

Sit Strategically

My butt is my best feature and my tummy my worst, so I’m ALWAYS laying on my tummy with my fanny slightly perked up. If you want to hide your thighs, sit up in a lounge chair with your knees bent. Have great abs? Lay down to showcase them. Boobs need a boost? Lay on your side so that they slide together and look perkier. In fact, the “side lay” is the best position overall, but it’s a little hard to maintain for too long since your arm muscles are engaged.

The side-sit is the most universally flattering since it stretches out tummy fat, pushes boobs together, makes your arm look thin and flexed by holding you up and camouflages thigh issues!

Show Your “Fanny Fold”

Fact: your butt looks better if you show more of it. Having your bikini bottoms cover ALL of your butt makes you look wide and diapery. Observe:

See what I mean?

Instead, pull your bottoms in just a bit so you can see the fold in your fanny. This is WILDLY attractive to boys and is super flattering to your bum!

So much more flattering, no matter what your bum looks like!

Skip the Mono-kini

These are INCREDIBLY unflattering. The middle cutout makes curvy girls look enormous and boyish figures look even more rectangular. They are not good for ANY type of figure, burn them if you have one and either opt for a one piece that shows your fanny fold, or a bikini.

This girl has a sick body but her monokini makes her look wide and shapeless, drawing the eye to her hips instead of her boobs, waist or legs or face. FAIL.

Avoid Mirrors

I’ve learned how to table my body angst and just let go…until I hit the bathroom and see what I really look like, then I get depressed and anxious all over again.

No bueno.

So, I don’t look in the mirror! I’ll literally walk sideways into the ladies room

Flex, Don’t Suck

Abs are my problem area, and I’ve learned that sucking in doesn’t help, but flexing your abs does! When you suck in, you look panicked and stricken and you draw more attention to your problem area.

No less weird when girls do it

But when you flex, your tummy flattens and your posture aligns!

Look At Photos Of Hot Girls

It sounds counter-intuitive, but studies show that looking at pictures of hot girls with great bods will actually boost your own self esteem! Weird, I know, but also strangely true.