feel beautiful

I really am working on it.
I am healthy. I eat healthy foods almost all of the time (occasional chocolate indulgence aside)... I work out at least 4 times a week. I’m working hard on my (stubborn) body, and also am looking into getting braces (HOPEFULLY INVISIBLE!) to fix my teeth (aren’t perfect and I would like them to be)... There’s not much else I can do for my face… aside from plastic surgery but that’s not an option for me, for many reasons… maybe when I am older, but not now, I’m still young and my face is still “maturing” I believe.
I guess most of it isn’t physical though, mostly it is mental.
I don’t know.

Step 2 to feeling beautiful, according to wikiHow:
2. Go through your clothing. Do these clothes make you feel beautiful? If they don’t, go shopping for some that do. Remember – “beautiful” does not mean “slutty.”

Hah. The only clothes I am comfortable in are the ones that hide my “figure”. So no. None of my clothes make me feel beautiful. Until my body is beautiful, none of them ever will. I’ll have to work on it I guess.

Yeah they affect me. In the movies with their large breasts and teeny waists. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, really. So shallow and self-involved.
But in the past I haven’t been able to help myself! I see them, then I look at me and I’m just… ashamed.
And then angry, because women are so frequently used for marketing and entertainment, portrayed as sex machines, with their seductive looks, suggestive poses and skimpy outfits. And I want to blame everyone who created this standard for my own insecurities. “How can I like myself when I am under such pressure?!”
Anyway.
Today I really looked at the women on my TV.
And just found them sort of sad and pathetic. Empty. Pointless.
Sex is great, sure, and I guess it is an easy sell- but there is so much more to life. Are we all really so ruled by our biological reproductive urges and compulsion to orgasm that we’ll buy a deodorant that promises such results?
My boyfriend uses Axe and sometimes I look at the container suspiciously, wondering why the marketing ploy worked on a man who claims to be in a happy, healthy, loving relationship with a woman he believes is the most beautiful in the world (his words!). But then he probably just wears it because it smells good.
I need to stop looking at the women on TV as competition, and comparing myself to them. I’ll never fit into that ideal. That sex kitten ideal- a beautiful, skinny, perfectly groomed, charming, flirtatious woman who is always ready to spread her legs or get on her knees. Or at least make you believe that she is.
Do I really want to be?
No.
So.
Why feel bad about it?
That’s the question I need to go back in time and ask myself.

Step one to feeling beautiful, according to wikiHow:
1. Find confidence in yourself. You know you can do this and before going on get confidence. That’s the first step to feeling good. Look in the mirror. Look at others. You don’t look like them. They don’t look like you. You’re unique. No one else looks like you.

I already look at myself.
And I already look at others.
Usually I compare myself to them and (always) come up short.
So I suppose the first step is to stop comparing like that. And don’t look at others as “better”, just “different”.
I’ll try.