Layne Beachley, 50, reveals she gets ‘easily triggered’ by negative thoughts about her body
>
Layne Beachley has revealed that she sometimes struggles to accept her flaws.
The champion surfer, 50, tells this week’s number of Body + Soul that she can make herself pretty hard – but tries to embrace aging.
“When I judge my body, like my gray hair and ugly toes, I recognize it and say, ‘Go on, Layne,'” she told the publication.
Layne Beachley (pictured) has revealed that she sometimes struggles to accept her flaws. The champion surfer, 50, tells this week’s issue of Body+Soul that she can push herself pretty hard, but tries to embrace aging
‘I look at my life and I think, what have I to complain about? My three most important values are support, vitality and growth, and if one of them feels like it’s in balance, I get triggered quickly.”
Layne said she had recently been depressed after the death of her boyfriend Chris Davidson.
“I had a very negative mentality and lost my confidence,” she admitted.
“When I judge my body, like my gray hair and ugly toes, I recognize it and say, ‘Go on, Layne,'” she told the publication.
‘I look at my life and I think, what have I to complain about? My three most important values are support, vitality and growth, and if one of those feels like it’s in the balance, I get easily triggered,” she added.
“People said to me, ‘Why are you so pissed off about being on Body+Soul because you don’t think you’re the beautiful young thing that deserves to be on the cover?'”
The athlete previously revealed that she once had liposuction on her inner thighs because she didn’t feel like she was “cover girl” material in the surf industry.
“I went out of my way to adapt and fit into what I thought a beach babe body should look like,” the veteran aquatic woman told sportswriter Sam Squiers on her podcast. on her game.
The athlete previously revealed that she once had liposuction on her inner thighs because she didn’t feel like she was “cover girl” material in the surf industry. Pictured in 2005
“I’m a smaller, sturdier person and I’m strong, so I didn’t think that was the kind of body I had to have…and everyone had the ‘keyhole’ look where you go through their legs and I thought I needed.’
Layne, who won seven world championship titles, felt like she wasn’t being sponsored in her early twenties because she didn’t fit the “look” and “feel” the industry was looking for.
“So I went to great lengths to get liposuction on my inner thighs, which was just the dumbest thing ever. I wasn’t even done growing yet, I was only 24,” she said.
The professional surfer from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was two years away from winning her first world title at age 24 when she decided to have plastic surgery on her legs
The Australian sports icon came up with the ‘idea’ for plastic surgery after stopping the pill.
Before she turned 19, Layne said she barely had “an ounce of fat” on her, but that changed when she started taking the birth control pill.
She had convinced herself she was following the right diet and exercise routine — which she now says wasn’t true — and plastic surgery was her last resort.
“I went out of my way to adapt and fit into what I thought a beach babe body should look like,” the veteran aquatic woman told sportswriter Sam Squiers on her podcast On Her Game.
‘I had an old-fashioned mentality, which I think many people still have, where exercise and dieting is the only way to lose weight. What about the negative dialogue you have where you beat yourself up and call yourself fat and ugly?’ She went on.
Layne had convinced herself that someone like fellow surfer Lisa Anderson was the “benchmark” for the body to aim for because she was tall, slim and blonde.
Unless she looked like Lisa, who was sponsored by Roxy at the time, she would never be “worthy” to be a paid surfer.
Layne (center), who won seven world championship titles, felt like she wasn’t being sponsored in her early twenties because she didn’t fit the “look” and “feel” the industry was looking for
But that all changed when she signed with Billabong and outsmarted and outsmarted her opponents in the water, proving that you don’t have to look a certain way to inspire a generation of younger athletes.
She is the only woman in history to have won seven world titles and the only surfer – both men and women – to win six consecutively from 1998 to 2003.
In 2006, Layne was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame before retiring from the professional circuit in 2008.
For confidential 24 hour support in Australia, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Read more in this week’s issue of Stellar Magazine