For my birthday this year from my sister, I asked if I could have a colour analysis done.

Now I've always been intrigued to have one because you see the clips on YouTube and Facebook and things and I always wondered what colours would suit me best and I like anything that analyses me, whether it's personality or how you look or whatever. I'm always curious to see what other people think.

And I'm always thinking, am I wearing the best colours? Now there's certain colours that I like to wear and there are colours that I wouldn't wear just because I think they suit me or they don't suit me.

And then it got me curious to think, does wearing different colours make a difference to how I look or how I feel?

At the minute, I normally dress for comfort. I spend most of my days teaching Pilates, so doing demonstrations of different exercise. So I'm normally in my leggings and my t-shirt that I wear for work. I don't bother doing much with my hair because it's curly and it's like a big frizz bomb. Just tie it up.

I don't bother with makeup, I ain't got time, I'd rather have more sleep. So I normally can't be bothered. But when I do make bit of effort, when I get a nice top or a nice outfit, it does make me feel better.

I do feel a bit more confident. I'm quite happy for people to see me. Whereas if I'm just wearing scruffy clothes, I'm like, oh, just don't bother looking at me too much. Don't judge me. But it's all about how I feel. I still don't really care what other people think of my clothes to a certain degree I do.

But I'm definitely not like my teenage daughter who is into the latest trends and makeup and fashion. They've got a look the same as everybody else in their year. They can't possibly wear something different or that's not cool.

I'm very much, I prefer comfort and practicality. I still want to look reasonably nice. I don't want to wear random clothes I don't think match, but I'm not driven by trends.

I would like to have a really nice wardrobe, lots of nice clothes in that all suit me, but part of that is then down to my own body confidence, the fact that I'm always heavier than I want to be, although I have lost some weight. I'll probably put some of that back on again, but I'm always waiting to think, right, when I get slimmer, I'm going to buy nice clothes because then it'll look nice on me.

I realise actually I need to dress for how I am now. And if I want to look nicer than I could buy some clothes. If a bit of colour or the right colour then makes me glow and looks better, then I will feel better. I don't need to wait for that future version of me to be worthy of making the effort or getting the clothes that would suit me.

Now I often see women say bigger than me who wear clothes I would never wear. And if they are happy in them and they are rocking them, they are confident, they're happy to get their legs out and to like show skin and things. I wouldn't even though I'm potentially slimmer than them, but that's down to body confidence. And if they feel good in themselves, good on them.

And you see people with really eclectic, different fashion senses. And again, they will get people watching them, looking at them, I think good on them. If that's how they want to dress and they feel good, fantastic.

But the common thing with people that are confident in how they look and feel good in their clothes is that they are dressing for themselves. They are not dressing to impress other people.

If they feel good in something and they want to wear it, then they are happy. People that are dressing for other people, they are always seeking that perfection. They won't wear something even if they like it, if they think other people won't. And that can make you feel really low and lack your self-esteem.

But we need to remember that how we dress, how we look, shouldn't be about pleasing others. If you want to wear that and you think you look good in it and you want other people to think you look good, that's fine as long as you are happy in yourself.

Don't then try and wear things that you don't actually like just to please other people.

So it's all these trendy clothes, it's all, at the minute my daughter has to wear Nike socks and it was all about the Nike leggings, now it's about baggy going back to the 90s, baggy jeans, little crop tops. So all the things that when I was a child, I wasn't allowed to wear fashionable clothes. My mum would just buy like normal clothes.

So I always wanted to have those things, but maybe that's then brought me up to think, actually, I just wear what I like rather than what is cool and trendy. But that's all about fitting in. What we need to do is feel happy in ourselves.

And if that is wearing the same clothes to everyone else and you like those clothes, fit in if that makes you happy. If you're fitting in and it's not making you happy, then don't dress for yourself.

And in terms of colours, we often gravitate to certain colours that maybe we really like. So I'm always going towards the bright, dual colours. I like to stand out in that way. I'm not one to shy away. And you'll see that if you ever see me on stage. I like to be in the limelight.

But I like those colors. So often they are too bright. Like my son won't wear bright colors because he doesn't want to stand out. He wears red and he does a few things, but that's the only things that he will wear. My daughter very much is in the beige camp.

So I'm really curious to see what they say about her because she's coming as well. And I've convinced her to buy something afterwards that she wouldn't normally wear. So a color that they say would really suit her to see how that looks on her.

So we're going to each buy an item of clothes in a color that we don't already own that this lady is going to suggest to us. And I want to see can colors make you look and feel more alive and whether that really helps to make you feel glowing.

And I see people out and about and I'm like, that color, I wouldn't wear it myself, but it really suits them. And it's all to do with like the skin tone, hair color, eye color.

but a colour that I wouldn't wear myself and I don't like but it looks amazing on them.

And everybody can wear what they want. That's absolutely fine. You can wear any style, whatever, if you feel good in it, that makes you confident. That then will make you look better if you're confident in the clothes.

And it isn't about what size you are. It's not about what's allowed, what colours go together, what's the trendy thing. It needs to be things that you enjoy wearing, things that make you feel confident.

And if you find there's no clothes that make you feel confident if you are struggling generally with self-esteem and body confidence, is there something else going on?

During perimenopause, we undergo a lot of changes. Now this can be the shape and size of us. We often put on weight. It's harder to maintain weight that you may have had the same weight all through your lives, the same slim figure. And then suddenly we hit perimenopause and we start to increase the weight, particularly around the middle because we hang on to abdominal fat.

because it produces a certain type of estrogen and the body likes that, it's not the best type of estrogen.

We also have changes to our skin. Obviously we get older, it might be drier, we start to get wrinkles, our hair changes, it might become thinner, we might get greyer, we disrupt our sleep and all of these things can affect our self confidence.

We stop making the effort then and then we put ourselves last and we think well what's the point of looking good?

But it's not about looking good for other people. We need to shift our mindset. It's about feeling good in ourselves.

And it isn't about having a big transformation and like going out and putting loads of makeup on and putting your best outfit on. If you want to do that, fantastic. It's just about feeling a little bit better in yourselves.

So if putting on a pair of joggers and a top that's a different color that makes us feel happier, great.

if it's about putting the full face makeup on doing our hair and wearing the latest outfit and that makes you feel good fantastic

we need to accept and learn to feel good in our bodies as we get older.

Because unfortunately, we're never going to get back to where we were in our teenage years or our twenties. I mean, some people can get fitter and lose more weight and it might look even better as we get older, but our skin's not going to be the same. Even if you have work done, it's not going to look the same.

So we need to accept how we look.

we need to think what would make us feel better about ourselves, not for other people.

it might be if you're still struggling with your self esteem and feeling good in yourself, that there is more to unpick.

I'll be talking about self-confidence a bit more in the next podcast and I'll let you know how I get on with the colour analysis.

I would love to know, do you dress for comfort or for fashion or both? Do you feel good in your clothes or could you tweak something to make you feel a bit better? Until next time, take care and have a great week.