2025 has been anything but an easy year for so many people, but on a deeply personal level, this past year has tested my resilience and confidence in numerous ways.

After being hit by back to back hurricanes in 2024, I managed to tear both calf muscles in my right leg. Aside from physical therapy the only recovery is time.

Wearing What Supports You Changes Everything

These photos were taken in swimsuits that actually support my body — styles similar to OnePieces that hold, shape, and move with you instead of demanding you conform to them.

There’s something powerful about putting on something that allows you to relax instead of brace. When you’re not constantly adjusting, sucking in, or second-guessing yourself, confidence becomes natural.

The same goes for accessories. A great pair of QUAY sunglasses doesn’t just finish an outfit — it gives you permission to show up a little more unapologetically, a little less exposed to the noise.

Having spent the past 9 years working to get myself in shape, lose significant weight and rebuild my confidence following a major break up and job loss in 2016, losing my ability to run and lift weights or take OrangeTheory classes, even temporarily felt overwhelmingly defeating.

Seeing the scale continue to go up constantly and finding my normal methods no longer worked, I found myself hiding away from the world. And as new stressors continued to pile on, any progress seemed out of reach.

I hit my lowest after helping a friend shoot a new line for her swimwear company, and seeing myself in a bikini at my highest weight & worst shape in a decade, I finally just cracked.

I had been doing all the things you are supposed to (and still do) - tracked my calories, walked, and fixed myself up nicely to feel better, but eventually realized I needed more help than I was capable of on my own.

Eight months after my initial injury (and six from the tear itself), my doctor finally cleared me to slowly start working out again, and I knew I would have to more or less start from scratch.

I bought myself some Bodybar classes along with my regular OrangeTheory membership, to combine low impact workouts with weights and cardio.

For a while this helped, but the weight still didn’t budge. I finally realized it was time to get some outside help in the form of a nutritionist.

And now, nearly a year after my original strain, I am still working to get back to where I was. But I have been making significant progress (though I have been slacking on my runs lately). And unlike in the past, I have decided to do my best to embrace where I am right now, and focus on improving a little each day, but finding ways to feel confident in my own body and skin as I am now.

In a society and a year where extreme thinness has come back into fashion, this is a daily challenge and some days feel significantly harder than others.

Looking at old photos of where I had worked so hard to get and seeing how far I still have left to go can sometimes feel like too much. And other days, as I shared with a friend, I realize the girl on my vision board I am working to be like and embody is my past self, only with more experience and more confidence in who I am this time around.

A Quiet Rebellion

Choosing comfort, strength, and self-respect in a culture obsessed with thinness feels like a quiet rebellion.

It’s saying:

I don’t need to hate my body to want growth
I don’t need to disappear to be beautiful
I can evolve without rejecting who I am now

If you’re in a season of rebuilding — physically, emotionally, or both — let this be your reminder that you are allowed to enjoy where you are while you work toward where you’re going.

You don’t need permission to feel good in your own skin today.

There’s a noticeable shift happening right now — a quiet but persistent return to hyper-thinness being positioned as the ideal. Scroll long enough and you’ll feel it: smaller bodies, sharper angles, less softness, less space taken up.

For a lot of women, myself included, it can stir up old narratives we thought we had outgrown.

But here’s the truth I keep coming back to: I can feel comfortable in my own skin exactly as it is, while still working to improve how I feel inside my body. Those two things are not opposites.

Comfort Doesn’t Mean Complacency

For me, comfort looks like honoring where my body is today — not hiding it, punishing it, or waiting until some future version of myself exists to feel worthy of ease.

It also looks like movement that feels good, choosing foods that support my energy, rebuilding consistency after seasons of disruption, and letting improvement come from care instead of criticism.

I’m not trying to become smaller to be more acceptable.
I’m working toward feeling stronger, healthier, and more at home in myself.