Loose Women‘s Nadia Sawalha has shared a throwback bikini pic, admitting she has spent too long hating her body.
The TV star, 55, posted the 20-year-old snap on Instagram alongside a current one in a two-piece as she embraced her natural body.
She said the old snap was sent to her by fellow Loose Women star Carol McGiffin and shows her attempting to cover her body with her hands while on the beach.
Honest: Loose Women’s Nadia Sawalha has shared a throwback bikini pic, admitting she has spent too long hating her body
In a lengthy caption, Nadia said: ‘@the_mcgiff just sent this pic she took twenty years ago to me and @kayeadamsofficial.
‘Saying … Just had to send this to you two because it so perfectly sums up the old Nadia……look at the horror on your face because I was taking a photo of you!!!
‘And my god she’s right.’
Confident: The TV star, 55, posted the 20-year-old snap on Instagram alongside a current one in a two-piece as she embraced her natural body
It comes after Nadia recently revealed she cried after reading 2000 messages she received after she posted a bikini video on Instagram.
The star vowed to never diet or count a calorie again after finding a new-found confidence.
She said of the video: ‘The thing was, it was a very hot day when I posted that and I was saying to Mark, I know how many women are feeling today.
Bold: Nadia recently told Loose Women she cried over 2000 comments she received after she posted a bikini video on Instagram
Confident: Nadia told viewers she will no longer diet or count calories
‘”I’m not going to wear this because of my arms, I’m going to pretend I’m cooler than I am so I don’t have to take my cardigan off, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that”.
‘I thought I’m just going to post this and there’s always a bit of nerves before I post anything. But I was absolutely overwhelmed.
‘Over 2,000 comments and I’ve read every single one. Many of the ones I read made me cry. I’ve thought all those things that those women have thought.
She said: ‘Over 2,000 comments and I’ve read every single one. Many of the ones I read made me cry. I’ve thought all those things that those women have thought’
Nadia said: ‘Nobody in my entire life has ever said anything as nasty to me as I’ve said to myself’
She continued: ‘I’ve spent a lifetime not getting in the pool, not wearing a swimsuit. Not daring to show my arms. I’m not talking about weight, I’m talking about the stinking thinking that so many of us as women have.
‘Nobody in my entire life has ever said anything as nasty to me as I’ve said to myself.’
Nadia’s Instagram post was accompanied by a caption in which she said: ‘I literally never ‘dared’ to go on the beach or by the pool again in a bikini again without a cover up on.
‘Thank god those days are well and truly in the past ! I feel as joyful and liberated in this video as I look !! FREEDOM from my OWN and OTHERS ‘STINKING THINKING’ is a wonderful thing.’
Nadia’s Loose Women co-star Carol McGiffin, 60, said: ‘I can testify to Nadia’s paranoia about her body.
New outlook: It’s wonderful to see Nadia feeling confident in her skin and she looks great
‘For years and years she used to jump into a swimming pool with a sarong on and get somebody to push her in to make it look like an accident because she didn’t want to take it off.
‘You would never see any of Nadia’s flesh and now she can’t keep her clothes on.’
Comedian Judi Love, 40, said: ‘As I’ve got older, I realised that when I was younger, because I’ve always been a bigger girl from a child, but it was made aware to me by others.
‘I look back on pictures now and think “girl you were damn fine!” But the time I spent worrying about this little bit of me, I didn’t appreciate what I had.
‘I think over the past few years where I feel like I’m living more purposefully, I’ve come to really love myself and get to know myself.’
Nadia concluded: ‘I will never as long as I live go on a diet again, I will never count a calorie again. I am divorcing diets. It is this hellish cycle that we get on.’
Carol McGiffin said of Nadia: ‘For years and years she used to jump into a swimming pool with a sarong on and get somebody to push her in to make it look like an accident because she didn’t want to take it off’