How Making TikToks Boosted My Body Confidence

I started the month of February with my “annual” doctor’s appointment. Three years had passed since my last visit, and my anxiety was focused mainly on the exam itself. The fluorescent lights were unforgiving, the kind that make you feel like every number is about to tell on you. That’s why the results of my weigh-in beforehand left me completely blindsided.

For about fifteen years, I’ve hovered around 200 pounds. It’s not my ideal weight, but I told myself that as long as I didn’t surpass 200, I could live with it.

I hadn’t weighed myself in months, so I expected my usual number. I was wrong—about fifteen pounds over—and I know exactly why. After nearly twenty years as a stay-at-home mom with a fairly active routine, I returned to the workforce ten months ago—to a desk job where I sit most of the day. The well-stocked snack drawer hasn’t helped either.

In a lot of ways, I’m still figuring out who I am outside of that role, especially as I move through the last few months of my forties. I’ve been reflecting on how I want to approach the second half once I turn fifty. For starters, I want to take better care of myself and, frankly, not be fat anymore. I’m not an unconfident person, but I’m also not the poster child for body positivity.

The most confident I’ve felt in my adult life was actually when I was making TikTok videos and doing live auction sales.

During those years at home, I always had some kind of side hustle. After the pandemic, I got deeper into thrifting and reselling plus-size clothing. To market my efforts, I started making TikTok content and eventually selling through live auctions.

I’ve never been shy about speaking, singing, or performing, so making content came easily in that sense. The difference was seeing how I looked on camera. In everyday life, I didn’t bother much with makeup or dressing up, but filming or hosting a sale gave me a reason to show up polished—hair done, makeup on, often modeling the clothing myself.

After about a year, I noticed something: the more I filmed myself, the more confident I felt on camera.

It wasn’t that I suddenly looked different—it was that I allowed myself to be visible.

“Fake it till you make it” actually worked.

I also built a community with other plus-size women, from clients to fellow resellers. What I didn’t expect was how quickly customers became familiar names, and familiar names became people I genuinely looked forward to seeing show up. Their support was its own confidence boost.

After about a year, I drifted away from content creation and live selling, partly from burnout. I still think about returning, but I wonder if I’d have to start that awkward “fake it” phase again. Part of me misses it more than I admit, but another part knows I’d need to carve out space to do it without burning out again.

I don’t know if I’ll go back or if I have the energy to rebuild what I stepped away from.

What I do know is that the version of me who felt confident already existed once, not because I weighed less, but because I showed up anyway.

Maybe the goal right now isn’t just to change the number on the scale.
Maybe it’s to find the nerve to press record again, exactly as I am.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one trying to figure out how to show up again after stepping away.