This is Optimal Health Daily.

Five Smart Tips to Body Image Confidence, Part 2 by Irene Elias of self-lovejunky.com.

And I'm Dr. Neal, your very own personal narrator.

Hey there and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, where I simply read to you from the best health

and fitness blogs for free. I cover fitness,

nutrition, stress management, weight management, and lots more. Just think of this as an audio book,

but with a bunch of different authors, and always with permission from the sites, and always with a bit

of my commentary at the end. Now, today's post is part two from yesterday.

So, if you're new here or skipping around,

I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first.

But if you're all caught up,

let's jump right in and hear part two

and continue optimizing your life.

Five smart tips to Body Image Confidence, Part 2 by Irene Elias of self-lovejunkie.com.

When I got really ill, I didn't have the energy to work out, and I noticed I got flabby.

At first, I thought, yuck, but after a vivid dream of me

running on the beach, I felt what it was like to have strong legs again. I woke up with tears

praying that all I wanted is to have strong legs again so that I can go for my walks on the beach

and be able to fulfill my purpose with energy. Very quickly, everything was put into

perspective, and in that moment, a sense of self-compassion came over me, and I could have cared

less about not being toned. But don't wait to reach a point of illness to start being kinder to

yourself. You can start to build your body confidence with these five tips.

...