Love One Part of Your Body

This is second in a series of posts I started when I was asked by a reader to explain how I’ve come to accept and love my body. First post here.

Hey all you beautiful apple shapes! By the way, apples are delicious and nutritious. Apple a day keeps the doctor away, so it’s actually healthier to be around us apples. Plus, I suspect, we’re more fun!
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Anyway, if you’ve stumbled around on the internet looking for ways to dress an apple shape or looked for clothing that would work for your shape you’ve come across the description of the apple shape: large stomach, large midsection, carries weight around the middle, blah, blah, blah. Then, like all the other shapes, it tries to come up with the positive parts of your body to highlight and for apple shapes they say it’s slender arms and legs. If you scoffed at that, like I did, you know often arms and legs are just as chubby as the middle. Or perhaps they have visible veins, cellulite, stretch marks or scars. Either way, you’re not in a hurry to show off those parts of your body either. If you’re like me, those body parts went south way before the mid-life middle came into play.

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Actually, I feel whomever wrote those descriptions about apple shapes just threw in the “lean arms and legs” to give us something to work with even though they know we have the most challenging body shape to dress in the current forms of clothing that are made. So, again, reading “advice” for my shape, I felt that I wasn’t getting realistic advice and it was not written by someone who has my shape or any experience dressing my shape.

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So, let’s take it from a real apple-shaped body perspective:

Learn to love your wrists. They are graceful. Put pretty bracelets on them. Admire the slender way they attach your arm to your hands. They’re so graceful when you hold something or turn a doorknob. Play up your wrists by showing them off with shorter sleeves.

Love your feet. They are muscular and shapely. They probably are bigger than when you were a lithe teenager but they’re still strong and curvaceous. Find some cute, comfy shoes. Make them a bright color or get a fun pattern. Get a pedicure to celebrate bare feet. A stylish (but always comfortable) pair of shoes can elevate any outfit and they’re starting to make shoes that are cute and aren’t painful to wear. You can be a fashionista just by the power of shoes!

Love your collar bone. Even if you are carrying weight in your bust and midsection you probably have some collar bone definition. Especially with gravity pulling your bust downward. Wear a necklace to draw attention to that area. It’s very flattering to have a necklace length hitting at the collar bone. Choose shirts that showcase your collar bone and look for pretty necklines.

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Now, I challenge you to find one other area to love if you are the apple shape without the slender arms and legs (or even if you are). Perhaps your earlobes? You can find very fun earrings. Or your cleavage? Necklaces and interesting collars could play up that area. Perhaps your fingers or toes? Rings, toe rings, manicures and pedicures can all be ways to show off those areas.

For me, I’ve come to love my ankles. Though they are not slim they look slim compared to my man-calves and they are shapely. I don’t mind showing them off. I showcase them with ankle length pants and cute shoes and while writing this I’ve decided to give an ankle bracelet a try!

How about it? What parts of your body can you love and show off? I guarantee you will have, at the minimum, one part to highlight. I’d love to hear which you choose.

 

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11 Comments

  1. Another lovely read Julia. I had to laugh at your description “man calves”. I have very well defined calves thanks to all the sport I’ve done over the years and consider mine to be man calves too. The other day I was wearing a pencil skirt and fitted top which prompted my husband to comment “nice calves!” – not the compliment I was aiming for, but you have to be grateful for anything eh?
    Anna x

  2. What a great post! And RIGHT ON TARGET, as far as I’m concerned. As another apple-shaped woman, I was always taken aback by the “great legs and arms” descriptors that went with our type. Just one more thing wrong with me, obviously, as I can’t even fit my own type, LOL.

    So, what do I like? At the moment, I really love my coral toenails, my graceful hands, and the laugh lines around my eyes. Now, I’m going to focus on my collar bone and wrists, thanks to you!

  3. While I’m not quite an apple myself (always had a waist, struggle with big thighs) I do appreciate what my ample-bosomed sisters can do with clothes.

    Let’s see, I have wide shoulders, enormous gray eyes, and almost no wrinkles. I can pass for about ten years younger than my fifty-six years just based on my complexion. And I’m tall-ish (5’7″). Eeh… I’ll do!

  4. Thank you, Julia, for your Blogging. I was very happy when I found your site: Very nice fotos, encouraging and intelligent texts, straight from the heart. My body is similar to yours and I can underline a lot of things that you describe. Best wishes for you and carry on!
    Juliane

  5. Yes, man-calves definitely got a chuckle from me as well! I recently wore a dress with pumps to my son’s pre-K end of year program and when I saw photos of myself…well, man-calves is pretty accurate! When my body shape is tormenting me, I focus on the fun and different things I can do with my hair! While we may have good and bad hair days, our hair is one thing we can manipulate in ways that we cannot do to our body!

    Lovely post, indeed, Julia! Thanks for linking up On the Edge of the Week. I hope to see you again next Friday!

    Shelbee
    http://www.shelbeeontheedge.com

  6. I love this! I have also been trying to love my body more recently as is, going so far as to (try to) love my round belly too. We spend so much time hating our body parts, it’s a waste of life as far as I’m concerned from now on. 🙂 I am visiting via the Blog your heart out Pinterest page 🙂

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