Nautical One Piece Bathing Suit

Today I’m sharing a nautical one piece bathing suit from ModCloth that is sexy, flattering, and fun!  If you haven’t shopped at ModCloth, what I consider their leg up is that they honor the varied figures of women of all sizes.  They have a lot of retro looking bathing suits and dresses and almost all of their items can be found in sizes for every body.   And on that note – I’m using this post to share some personal thoughts on how I gained the courage to overcome my fears of posting my mom bod in a swimsuit.

My brother believes my blog is just an adventure in how much I’m willing to publicly humiliate myself.   So when I got the opportunity to share a nautical one piece bathing suit from ModCloth I felt like I could really hone that niche well.   I knew from my trip to Puerto Rico that I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable posting a picture of myself in a bathing suit on Instagram.  I actually got to choose between sharing a dress or a bathing suit as part of this collaboration and spent a lot of time debating my fears after I fell in love at first site with this nautical one piece bathing suit.

 

Striped One-Piece Bathing Suit (wearing size small in the nautical one piece)  |  Knit Sweater Cover-up (wearing size medium)  |  Bandana Accented Jean Shorts (wearing size 5 – these run small)  |  Retro Blue Sneakers (true to size)

As a 35 year old mom my body gives me lots of relatable flaws to crack jokes about on Instagram.   My lose skin, my deflated boobs, cellulite….I could keep going but what’s the point?   We are all our own worst critic.  I can’t think of any women I know who don’t have insecurities about their bodies but I spent a few years of my life being paralyzed by them.

I have mentioned before that when I was in college I gained (at least) the freshmen 15 and learned to take it off as I struggled through a couple years of eating disorders.   I was consumed with thinking that my worth was related to my weight and feeling like I had such control over being thin that it dominated the majority of my time.   My weight controlled me, not the other way around.   I spent (wasted) so much time and energy worrying about when, where, what I would eat and still manage to stay thin.

These dark days were about 15 years ago so it’s difficult to recall all of my thoughts but I remember wanting to get out of the cycle and feeling like I’d trapped myself.   I was able to stop the behavior and I can’t exactly pinpoint how (it wasn’t the multiple therapists and nutritionists I tried) other than just learning forgiveness of my body. I refocused my goal to simply being HEALTHY and in doing so freed up all the time I spent worrying about food and my weight to actually enjoy life.

I have gotten a lot of questions since blogging about how I stay thin.   I am actually thinner right now than what I would say is my body’s norm.   With blogging my work day really kicks into high gear when my kids hit the pillow so my evenings are less often spent having dinner and cocktails with friends and are instead cuddled up to my laptop.   I am also still nursing my son (even in the middle of the night, blah), which is essentially like being extremely regimented with the treadmill.

So right now I don’t have insecurities about my weight but I’m self conscious, especially in these photos, about having totally uneven sized boobs.   I only nurse on one side so my boobs are over a cup size different.   If I didn’t point it out you might not have even noticed but I wore a bra under this suit to try and help even them out for the pictures.   After we shot these photos I felt like my chest looked way more vavavoom than I felt comfortable with so I’m making sure to publicly own that this is all smoke and mirrors (or the help of a great bra).

For me, humor is a good coping strategy.   I really try to own what I see as my physical flaws because I want to embrace what God gave me.   Even though I don’t find my double chin sexy, it’s a good laughing point.  The beauty of editing these photos is that I picked the best of a huge bunch.   In some shots I looked like I had a D-cup next to an A-cup so I left those out.  You’ll notice I don’t show any straight on photos in a suit because I have these weird fat pouches in my thigh gap area that I didn’t want anyone looking at for the longevity of my website.

I am starting to ramble but my whole point is that we all have parts of our body that aren’t what we would consider ideal.  Having kids who really love me and want to be around me at my most wretched state (7 am when I have mascara smears filling in the huge bags under my eyes and garbage breath) has reminded me, even more, to stop wasting time worrying about the things I can’t change.    I am so blessed with a healthy body.   I am blessed with long legs.  I am blessed with a fairly flat stomach.   And the things I wasn’t blessed with aren’t changing the way my loved ones feel about me.

Being kind and funny is how I hope people will remember me.   If they remember me as being kind and funny with deflated, saggy boobs I am honored, because I feel like I was doing something right if I left that impression.

So here I am…in all my glory as a middle aged mom with cellulite pretending to be a bathing suit model and just trying to be able to laugh about it.   But really, how fabulous is this suit?   Who could have turned it down?  We usually end up at pool parties or down by the shore for at least one, if not all 3, summer holidays.   Doesn’t this patriotic one piece bathing suit scream Memorial Day pool party right at you?  I love the cut of this suit because it’s a one piece but still really sexy.   The patriotic look with the flattering stripes (great for hiding that annoying “I am on vacation and can’t seem to poop” pooch) makes it perfect for summer.

I added the denim shorts with the fun bandana detailing on the pockets.   Size up on these shorts, I got a size 5, I’m usually a size 2-4, and they’re very fitted, but with great stretch.  This pair of denim cut-offs has a longer inseam for those who don’t like what I call “booty shorts”.

The coverup I am wearing is actually a summer sweater.   I sized up to a medium to make it oversized.   If you saw on Instagram I re-wore this “cover-up” for my flight home from the RewardStyle Conference.    The sweater is really thin and soft.   It’s more of an open knit so I wore a lace barrette underneath because I like it slouched off one shoulder.

I debated between getting these rope sandals or these retro sneakers but I have been loving sneakers for running around with my kids lately, so even though they don’t really have a great pool-vibe to them they’re awesome and and have a throw-back look.   These sneakers also come in this gold/khaki version and I’m  having FOMO on that pair.

ModCloth has tons of retro print bathing suits and even dresses and their pool favorites happen to be BOGO 50% off if you act quickly.   I really want a high waisted bikini like this one and I’m sharing a couple other suits I have heart eyes for below:

So I’d love to hear from you guys!!   Do you have a lot of body insecurities?   How are you coping with them?

We hope you enjoyed this nautical one piece, be sure to check more of our summer fashion before you go.

Thank you to Mod Cloth for sponsoring this nautical one piece bathing suit post.   The opinions included are my own.