Feeling Too Fat To Make Videos for Your Business

11/26/2018

I hear you! I have struggled with this too and especially after my 4th child. I had extra with my other kids but it was mostly in my tummy, but then I even had it on my arms. But because of the experience I had to learn some tricks with my clothing and camera angles that sorta hides what I don’t like and makes me a little more comfortable.

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Today I want to talk about the topic of feeling too fat to make videos right now. Maybe you are feeling this or maybe you've had this experience. I totally hear you.

I had this experience myself. It was about a couple of years ago after I had had my fourth child. I put on a little too much weight. I think I was around 180 pounds. I waited for about five months, six months, maybe seven months to lose some of that weight and it wasn't really coming off.

So when I came down to my studio to finally start filming videos again, I got behind the camera for a photo shoot and videos and I realized I could not just stand in front of the camera and look like I had looked before.

And when I watched the replay back I was just horrified. I remember looking at myself and thinking, “wow, I look like I'm still seven months pregnant still”.

Now that's not a big deal. Many people make videos that way. But this is really about how you feel when you look at yourself.

So if you were in a situation that was similar, you know. If you looked at yourself and you thought, “oh wow, that's just not how I wanna present myself.”

Then you might have been feeling the same way.

Maybe even now, maybe you watch videos and you're just like, “oh, I just, I can't do this. I just don't feel right. I just, I feel too fat.”

I mean, that's really what it comes down to.

It's funny because I think actually in this picture here on my roadmap, I was five months pregnant and you couldn't tell.

I think, as a mom having a lot of kids, we kind of pride ourselves and staying a little bit smaller and trying to keep that weight off. And when you get to the point where you can't keep the weight off, you kind of start to think “what's wrong with me? Why can't I get this off?”

But it's just a problem that we have to deal with and we have to move past.

So my way of moving past this really came down to a little bit of waiting and patients to lose a little bit more weight. But also learning how to dress so that I could hide some of that extra weight that I wasn’t use to having.

So that when I watched the videos I didn't see what I didn't want to see. like the extra on my arms. That was one of my places that I was always like kind of, you know, you know, you've ever heard if you make fun of somebody, it comes back to you.

I remember always thinking, oh my arms are so thin and small, like 11 inches or something. So when I had that extra weight, I stopped measuring, but I could see the cellulite on my arms.

I was just like, “oh, this is not me. I don't feel comfortable on video showing that.”

So I had to actually go through and create a wardrobe that was now for the new me. So this might be what you need to do to.

There's of course more complex ways of trying to address it, like go into the gym and eating healthy and trying to lose the weight, but that's not going to give you an immediate fix.

If you know that you need to get on video right away for your business and you have to do in the next week or so, you're not going to lose that weight in a week.
That's like a long term thing of six months to a year or longer, changing your diet and stuff. So that's not what this video is about.

It's really about kind of, you know, covering it up, masking it so that you can move forward.

So what I'm going to share with you today are just some tips that I have found that work for clothing and camera angles and they sort of hide those parts that make me feel uncomfortable when I'm watching myself on video.

Anyway, let's dive into these tips

And before I start, just so you know, I was a fashion designer for years and years and so that's why fashion styling is just kind of that comfortable step for me to take in addressing a problem.

So it's not really because this is materialistic. We can address this with mindset as well, but I think that even with mindset, you're going to go on the camera and still see what you're going to see. You're still going to say “I just look too fat”.

So that's why I think wardrobe can really help with us. Alright, so now for my first tip.

#1 - Don’t wear clothing that is too tight or uncomfortable

I've lost some more weight, so right now I am wearing some things that are tight. This is a little tight and honestly I still have a belly. I'll show you, I'll turn sideways and you can see since we're talking about partly camera angles and stuff.

I'm straight on and so straight on you can kind of see that I have a waist and the stripes are kind of taking away from my tummy, and kind of giving some interest. But if I turn sideways, my belly shows and so I don't do that.

I actually just always stand forward facing now. But there's also things like having tables in front of you. I don't like to stand back real far, either. If I stand back, you're seeing everything. If I was wearing leggings with a shorter top it wouldn’t look good, I'd rather wear a skirt that kind of covers.

When I looked seven months pregnant (even though I wasn’t), then what I did was I sat on a stool so it's cutting me higher, above my belly button.

But you might find that even going further, like zooming in more under your bust could be better. That way if you've got a lot of extra weight on your tummy, and on your arms, it doesn’t show as much. And if you have nice boobs you can show those and your face and not the rest of your body.

#2 - Try to wear loose flowing styles

So like a sheer drape over a dark tops. I started doing that a lot, like just beautiful draping clothing works really well. Usually darker, so not like a light pink top.

Darker because then it'll make you look smaller in that area.

#3 - Find some tops with some sort of mid sleeve

So your sleeve would come to above your elbow or below it.

Also wearing a jacket. I wear a lot of jackets now. Little cropped jackets that go to the mid of my arm. So above the elbow or to your mid arm, that works really well. And maybe they curve. You can do longer jackets too.

For me now it's mostly just my tummy, but I still like wearing long sleeves. I do wear tank tops once because they're just cute and if I put a jacket on it kind of takes away from it.

And now that my hair has grown again, I actually wear it down, it comes into that little crease where your arm is. When you do that, it kind of takes away from the size of your arm.

So I can wear something that is sleeveless, but you're not seeing my whole entire arm, you're just seeing part of it.

#4 - Draw attention up and away from the problem areas

Now what I’m wearing is not a great example, it’s long and probably drawing attention to my tummy. So this is not a hard fast rule.

But in general, if you are wearing a necklace, you would bring it up higher, not long. So maybe you have earrings, maybe have a choker, maybe have a necklace, you want it to be above your bust. So you're drawing the focus to your face and bust and not further down.

In my case, I thought it was okay with the stripes on my shirt and the cut. And, I just love long flowy things being a Pisces. So you know, you have to just find what works for you.

#5 - Film above your bust with a table or the desk in front of you

So where is your problem area? If you're bigger on bottom and you want to cover that up, maybe you can stand and you're just fine having a desk at your hip level, because that's going to cover your hips.

But if you don't want to stand and you want to sit, then it's going to be a little bit lower.

Honestly, I don't like to sit in a chair, so I sit on a stool, so I'm a little bit higher. It just makes me feel a little more active.

But, you can also just film the videos where you don't have a desk or anything in front of you. Instead, you just crop the shot to where they're seeing the upper part of you.

Maybe you are sitting at a desk, but then you can still crop a bit.

#6 - Choose clothing that is the right color for your skin and hair color

If you choose stuff that works with your skin, then it's going to look more natural. It's going to kind of take away from some of that extra weight. So it's not going to be like a double whammy where your color is wrong and the style is wrong.

When you have both of those and you've got the extra weight, nothing is really blending.

So you want to find things that look good. You want to find tops that fit or drape, and find the right color too. That's going to be one more thing in your favor. It's going to blend nicely with you, so things aren't going to look so out of place.

#7 - Always wear clothing that makes you look and feel your best

You should start looking for styles that look good on you. If you were thinner as some point, which we all probably were, then you were wearing something a little bit different.

Maybe you could get away with wearing a lot of tank tops, but now maybe you don't want to show your arms so much. And so you have to find different styles of tops, maybe raglan sleeves. This would be a raglan where it just kinda is more drapey.

Maybe you still have something that is fitted underneath and it's a tank top, but you're just throwing a little shawl or something on it.

You have to play around with clothing, try it on and decide does this look good. You can ask “does it make me feel good?”

So every single thing that I buy something, I try on. I don't buy it unless I try it on. I don't guess that it's gonna look good on me. I actually put it on and I always asked myself that question, “does this look good on me?”

More importantly, “do I feel good in this?”
Does it look natural? Do I feel kind of frumpy or fat? Do I feel like I'm pretending? Does it feel right? Does it feel good?

So you can usually just fall back on that.

But, you might want to try it on and turn on the video camera and see what it does because the camera also adds weight and that can be a problem.

Maybe it looks great when you were looking at it in the mirror and then you get in front of the camera you're just like, “oh wait, why are my arms looking so big?”

So you never know. And it's just kind of a trial and error thing.

Those are my tips for dressing, so that you can look a little bit thinner and feel better about yourself on camera.

Plus hide some of those areas that you don't want to show so much.

If you feel uncomfortable, if you feel like you're too fat to make videos, then you have to somehow fix it somehow and wardrobe can do the trick.

If you can then watch the video and be like, “yeah, that works, I'll let that go out.”

Just remember, you might not get it right every time. Sometimes I still don't quite choose the right outfit.

If I’m putting together 24 different outfits or tops for something and one or two of them gets thrown in and it's not quite right, I have to wear it anyways.

Then I watched that video back and I think, “Oh man, why did I choose that top?”

But honestly, I let it go now because I produce enough videos that I'm like, “oh well some days I can't always make myself look thinner than I am.

Sometimes I end up looking a little bit bigger than I am. Sometimes I just look the size that I am.”

So hopefully these tips can help you.

Now, I want to mention my Course Creators Road Map

If you are a maker, creative entrepreneur, or coach, who wants to make videos for an online course my road map is a great place to start.

To download it, you can go to http://lightscamerateach.com/roadmap

I'll walk you through the 12 stages of producing and promoting an online course and there's also a free training that goes along with it.

If you decide we are a good fit and you want to join me in my 1-year program, I'd love to help you create your course!

And, I would love to hear from you!

If you have ever felt like you were too fat to make videos, what was it that you did to fix that problem?

Did you, did you choose clothing that made you feel better or did you actually go to the gym and lose the weight?

Or did you completely procrastinated on making your videos and just say, and I'm just not going to do videos?

How did you get past it? I'd love to hear from you.