Surfing and an embarassing body

LegacyUser

I’m a 24 M and In the next few weeks, myself and some mates are heading off to Oz. Thing is, most of the group are experienced surfers and were intrigued to hear I’d never tried it. They start volunteering to show me how and tell me how much I’ll love it and so on. They are basing much of our trip around surfing and beaches.

The problem is I spent most my life being embarrassed about my body. I was overweight since I was a child. It’s a family trait. I used to be much heavier and now, thankfully, my belly isn’t the biggest but it’s like a flabby, wrinkly I-used-to-be-heavier type belly. In the last few years, I also got really hairy too. The full on hairy chest, back and belly. It’s not thick black curly hair or anything but it’s not a minor fuzz either. Oh, and a minor mob issue to boot. In a nutshell, at 24, I have the body of an embarrassing Dad! I feel any of my traits individually would be easy to overcome since I’ve worked on my confidence. However, I possess a laundry list of male body image concerns and I'm not looking forward to bearing all before all and sundry on some far flung shore...

As a child, I loved the water but I spent my life subsequently avoiding having to show off my body. My thoughts are that it would be good for me to try to give up my self-conscious ways but at the same time, my body is such a sore issue to me, I’m not sure how to handle things.

I’ll be grateful for any advice you can give.

ted1

if you don't like your body hair you wax it or shave it.

as regards the flabby belly. other than get rid of it by correct eating and excersising not much you can do.

you'll be surfing in Oz so more than likley not need a wesuit, you will need a UV vest like a rash vest but with a SPF rating. these will cover your belly and can hold it in for you.

once you start, you'll love surfing.

Mighty_Mouse

This is the opportunity to take the journey of a lifetime for so many potential positive reasons.
You won't impress chicks on the beach to start with, but how bad?
You there to hang out with your mates.
Blokes don't pass much notice on other blokes bodies.
Anyone rips the piss out of you, store it & use it as motivation.

Your mates sound helpful and interested in helping you sort yourself out.
It takes balls to overcome your issues and walk down a beach with a flabby belly. If you can find it within yourself to do so, it could be the ticket to permanently resolving all your hangups.

My advice is grab this opportunity with both hands, be brave & determined, get over there, suck it up, work hard at it, spend the hours in the water, surfing will result in rapid improvement, within 2 weeks you will be getting fitter and improvement will ease anxiety.

Your mates sound fit & healthy. If you spend 2-3 months surfing when they do, eating when they do, travelling, moving each day, packing, unpacking, walking, surfing early & late, you'll be seriously fit by the end of it. Possibly even ripped.

Finally, if your super-conscience about the hair, get it waxed at the start (just do the back FFS).
But you'll find as you excercise more, get fitter, happier, hang out on beaches, meet new people, you'll start meeting the right type of people.
People who's only expectation from you is that your a nice guy.
You'll grow in confidence, and once you do you won't give a **** what anyone thinks about you hair, flab, accent, clothes, .......

ps
You'll also meet designer wearing, peacocks, with next years gear twittering constantly about how they "did" all of south america in 2hours, "did" the north pole in speedos & and loike omfg "blew €10,000" having a larf in Sydney.
These people are knobs. Avoid.

orchidsrpretty

Can you not wear a t-shirt or a wet suit type top that will cover all. If you are questioned about it(which I doubt) you can say you are proctecting your skin from the sun. Enjoy your trip, even if you do bare all, it will be over in seconds and most people won't give you a second look.

seamus

I think this is something that you need to just "do" and get it over with, and then get over it.

For most of us, particularly us Irish, we're not really used to wearing less than a T-shirt and boxers in front of other people. But it's very unlikely that anyone will even take notice of what you look like, much less pass comment.

As your friends are experienced surfers, this will be nothing new to them, so they're not even going to take a second glance. When you realise that nobody else cares, you'll feel less self-conscious. You just have to take plunge and brave those first few times when you feel self-conscious.

Mighty_Mouse pretty much says everything else I was going to say. Surfing is massively upper-body intense activity. An hour or half an hour a day for a couple of months, and not only will you be able to surf (which in itself is pretty cool), but you'll notice yourself stronger, more toned and tanned on top.

If you're really self-conscious about it, then you could do as above, and maybe half of the time wear a wetsuit - to avoid subburn, and the other half not, to get yourself used to it more slowly.

Neyite

OP, have you seen the boots or kellogs special K adverts on women getting "beach ready" - it involves all sorts of hair removal, skin scrubs, exercise, dieting etc. We dont just turn up gorgeous y'know

So, you will soon see the exercise (the hardest part of the whole thing) produce results after a couple of weeks surfing, so thats that taken care of.

All you need to do is get a wax before you go, they last 6 weeks, and waxed hair generally grows back finer. Add in strong sunshine, and regrowth will bleach and become barely noticable. Go to a salon that specialises in mens waxing, dont be embarrassed, a back is not gonna faze them a jot- probably a welcome relief from brazillians.

A wetsuit is brilliant for streamlining your wobbles until you tone up a little, and you will probably need one anyway if you have typical irish skin you will fry if you are in such strong sun all day even with a high SPF - even the water resistant ones wear off in the water.

Even small amounts of exposure to the sun will build up a bit of colour in Oz, so once you have a bit of a tan, everything looks better. The sea salt will buff your skin to perfection.

LegacyUser

I surf.

No one really cares how anyone looks when you're changing.

If you are conscious about your body then buy a rash vest which you wear under a wetsuit or on its own if it's hot enough and you can also buy a robie for changing in (check it out online).

Enjoy yourself.