How to Get a Bikini Body: Confessions of Curvy Surfer Girl

Triggered? So are we. This summer (and all day every day) we celebrate all bodies. A bikini body is a body in a bikini and at Hakuna Wear we believe your swimsuit should get in shape for you and all your awesomeness, not the other way around. In her confessions of a curvy surfer girl, Jenn talks about her experience with getting comfortable with her curvy body as a surfer and a bikini wearer. 

Jenn feeling free in her Cloudbreak Reversible Bikini Bottoms

Like most women, I grew up with a mom who dieted, starved herself of pleasures, and guilted herself for indulging in her desire.

I grew up with a mom who started dieting when she was 11 years old.

I grew up being teased, tormented, and tortured by my schoolmates for being fat, chubby, and ugly.

Yeah, you could say I had a bit of a rough start in the whole self esteem department.

And then there’s surfing.

Surfing is really my main reason for existence - legit. It’s what I live for; it’s what I’ve built my life around; it’s what’s got me through some really challenging shit including toxic relationships and depression.

It’s also what helped me to really clearly see just how much I hated my body …

And at the same time … how much I really wanted to love it.

I don’t think body love comes easily - I mean it’s one of the biggest tapped psycho-marketing strategies EVER. It’s sneaky and sly and most of us aren’t even aware our strings are being pulled.

When I first started surfing, I didn’t feel comfortable surfing without shorts and a rashguard. 

I ALWAYS surfed with shorts and a rashguard.

I didn’t like my rolls.

I didn’t like my butt sticking out of my swimsuit bottoms.

I didn’t really like the way my body looked in a bathing suit - let alone when I was sitting on the board, rolls and squishy bits “out there” for the judgement of all.

Yeah there was some trauma - past and present - living in my cells & psyche.

You see, before I started surfing at 29, I was athletic. I was a mountain climber, hiker, skier. I accepted my “strong, athletic, body” for what it could DO - it’s performance … but I kind of still hated how it looked.

Ouch. That was really hard to admit. 

Really easy to deny when I wore layers of ski gear, or clothing to cover myself up.

But in a bikini, sitting on my surfboard, all rolls and squish, I realized I wasn’t actually comfortable with how my body LOOKED.

Jenn showing offer her swimsuit pocket, part of the functionality of the Cloudbreak Reversible Bikini Bottom

Why is this even important?

Well it IS!!!

I didn’t even realize HOW important!

How I feel about my appearance is just another, deeper layer of body love & self acceptance.

I can’t just love my body as a performance machine - it’s NOT a machine. 

It’s a freaking magical LIVING and BREATHING, sensuous EXPERIENCE! And to feel a true sense of wholeness & love for myself, I realized I need to celebrate & enjoy the full experience.

Exhilaration, aesthetics, sensuality, adrenaline, speed, softness, permission to spread, and flow, and luxuriate.

Surfing taught me true body freedom - it’s a lesson in progress.

I realized I actually HATE surfing in shorts! Lol!

Likewise, I don’t like surfing in rashguards! I don’t like how they bunch & move!

I remember a while ago, chatting with Jess, Hakuna Wear creatrix, comparing personal style preferences & fit (of course it’s different for all people & bodies!).

I mentioned how I used to wear rashguards just to cover up my rolls, but I never liked how they functioned or looked. When I saw her new Lovina Long Sleeve surf suit, I had stars in my eyes!

I want to wear things exactly like this - I want to surf worry free, feel comfortable AND stylish!

I want to feel beautiful AND powerful AND sexy AF in the water!

I don’t want to hide my “imperfections”!

I want to flaunt my curves!

I want to support companies that MAKE suits that FIT and FLAUNT my curves!!!

Surfing has been super transformative for me.

I went from wanting to hide my body to slowly wanting for it to have love and attention.

I used to judge on other women & myself for wearing “too revealing” of a surf suit, when deep down inside, I just couldn’t deal with how I’d feel with that much attention on my own body.

I wanted to hide it.

I was ashamed of how it.

I can’t claim I’m 100% love & light on my body. But what I can say - it’s a work in progress … 

And I certainly have my work cut out for me :)

xo,

Jenn

PS - I 100% support size and shape inclusive companies like Hakuna Wear. Having been subject to the predominantly patriarchal surf industry’s “standards” on what a size small, or medium, or large, XL, and beyond is “supposed” to fit like … and having spent wayyy to many moments to count in the change room trying on clothes and swimsuits that left me feeling fat, ugly and ashamed of my body, instead of hot & sexy AF, I say THANK YOU to the blessed souls out there, like Jess, from the bottom of my surfer girl heart.

It means so so so much to me to feel good in my surf suit.

It’s so much more than function and style.

It’s the huge hug the little girl in me always needed when someone called me fat.

It’s the solidarity & sisterhood that reminds me we are all inherently worthy no matter who we are, and what we look like, or what we do.

Thank you, Jess.

Thank you to my soul sisters out there.

You ARE beautiful.

Exactly.

As.

You.

Are.

Mini bio:

Jenn Plotnikoff is an ocean loving, self proclaimed hippy, surf loving, bruja.

Her passion for saving the planet started at birth and grew as she studied & taught environmental education & sustainability, and worked as a Wilderness Park Ranger for 10 years.

These days you can find her rigorously testing out her Hakuna Wear suits in the tropical waters of her home breaks on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.