Plus-Size Woman Rocks String Bikini for the 1st Time in 25 Years
A curvy woman who hasn’t worn a two-piece bathing suit in more than two decades is showing off her bikini body in some gorgeous beachside photos.
In the images, Sarah Sapora, 38, a Los Angeles-based blogger, wears a turquoise Cacique plus-size bikini by Lane Bryant while she dances and laughs in Malibu with a male model friend.
“The last time I wore a low-rise bikini I was 13 years old at ‘fat camp,'” Sapora wrote in the sponsored post titled, Show up. Play Big. Wear the Bikini; Lessons from a Plus Size Wellness Blogger About Being Free in Your Fat Body. “It wasn’t even mine; I borrowed it from a counselor and wore it just long enough to lay on a towel by the tennis court during rest period for 45 minutes that single summer day. Someone snapped a photo of it. I remember seeing it once, but that’s it. It’s taken me 25 years to feel that free in my body again.”
Sapora shares with Yahoo Style: “Although I had worn high-waisted bikinis in the past, this was the first time I wore an actual string bikini. I was so nervous when I opened the box — it was the size of a Scrunchie.”
“I wanted to do this shoot with a male friend because there are so few representations of plus women just enjoying life without emphasis on their weight,” she tells Yahoo Style.
Sapora clarified in her post that while she’s always loved herself, how she defines self-acceptance has evolved. “I have always passionately believed in the right we all have to feel easy in our skin,” she wrote. “At any size, at any weight, at any stage of life. But feeling ‘acceptance’ in our skin isn’t the same thing as feeling free in our body. And, as I know now, it isn’t the same as feeling bold.”
She also emphasizes on her blog, Sarah Plus Life, that while her goal is to shed weight from her 350-pound frame, that desire doesn’t stem from pressure to confirm to society ideals — only to be “the most badass strong, balanced and joy-filled version of me I can be.”
What’s more, Sapora gives herself — and her readers — a wake-up call in her post. “Want to know something? Sit down for this, because this overweight, 38-year old woman is about to drop a truth bomb on you,” she wrote. “Ready? That hiding? That anxiety you feel about who you are and what you look like? That fear you have that people are looking and going to laugh at you for dreaming big, being bold, or coloring outside the lines? It’s bananas.”
After all, she explains, self-love is infectious. “Let me explain. The more fulfilled Sarah is, the more I live who I am, and the more joy I feel in my life, the better friend I am. The better colleague I am. The more loving a daughter. The more present I will be for the man that I love.”
She continued: “It took me years to figure it out; I underrated myself for a long time. I didn’t do it intentionally, but it happened just the same. Now? I show up fierce. I show up free. I show up with joy from the inside out.”
Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:
15 Plus-Size Spring Style Tips That Instagram Taught Me This Week
Florida Mom Wants to Know Why Daughter’s Prom Dress Was Deemed Inappropriate
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