Serena Williams talks body image & refusal to diet

[Honey]

On Saturday, Serena Williams won her fourth Wimbledon title. Her sister Venus has five - so you know Serena is going to keep on until she at least ties with her big sister. Before she even flew to Wimbledon, Serena participated in a photo shoot and interview with Harper’s Bazaar. While I like that Serena is confident in herself enough to pose in a bathing suit in a fashion magazine, I think the Bazaar people might hate her? Why did they do that to her hair? Is that a wig or a hairstyle? Because it makes Serena look just terrible. Anyway, the interview is interesting - Serena talks a lot about body image and the comparisons to her sister. The full piece is here, and here are some highlights:

After she won the Australian Open in January she worked out a lot: “I wanted to get really fit. I wanted to lose some weight. So I’ve been doing Pilates and yoga, trying to lean out my body so I won’t be bulky.” Her regimen: Pilates two or three times a week and when she’s training for a tournament, “a couple of hours of hitting, then an hour or two of cardio and strengthening in the gym.” Also, when she’s at home in L.A., she runs the half mile up a hill to Venus’s house instead of driving.
But no dieting. “I don’t even know the D word,” she says with a laugh. There is a training eating plan, though: “Smaller portions of every meal, a lot of grilled or baked chicken or fish, and steamed veggies.” Her weakness? “ I can never turn down a good piece of cherry pie, but,” she continues, “all I know is that in 10 years, I don’t want to be as wide as this couch.”
It’s working: Williams, who adds that “Pilates gave me results within a week,” looks the best she’s ever looked and is now a size 10 instead of a 12.
“Owning” her athleticism: “When I was six or seven in a swimsuit—I look back at those picture, and my arms are cut and my legs are strong,” she says. “I didn’t realize that I was really fit and most people aren’t. To this day, I don’t love my arms. People want more fit arms, but my arms are too fit. But I’m not complaining. They pay my bills.”
Serena’s body comparison to Venus: “I was 23 when I realized that I wasn’t Venus. She’s totally different,” she explains. “I’m super curvy. I have big boobs and this massive butt. She’s tall and she’s like a model and she fits everything. I was growing up, wanting to be her, wanting to look like her, and I was always fitting in her clothes, but then one day I couldn’t.” She pauses. “But it’s fine. Now I’m obviously good, but it’s a weird thing.”
On her favorite body parts: “Since I don’t look like every other girl, it takes a while to be okay with that. To be different. But different is good,” she says. She’s loving her new bob too. “I feel so much sexier with short hair. I wanted to reach inside me and feel better. I don’t want to hide behind a facade of hair.” Her favorite part of her body? “My smile. Does that count? I think a smile can make your whole body. Models, they look fabulous, but they don’t smile and they look so mad. But I like my smile, how it’s bright and it’s nice. Good thing my braces worked out.”
On her former relationship with rapper Common: She was dating the rapper and actor Common, but they broke up in April. “his schedule is actually worse than mine,” she sighs. “He didn’t want the responsibility. It’s really tough.” Common then began promoting his latest film, heaping enough praise on Williams that people assumed they were still on. (”Beautiful, intelligent woman, fun and spiritual woman. I think she’s an incredible person,” he told Access Hollywood.) Williams looks befuddled—befuddled but coquettish. “So I called him and I was like, Why are you saying all this stuff when we’re not together?”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

Cele|bitchy » Blog Archive » Serena Williams wins Wimbledon, talks body image & refusal to diet

[karat]

Wow she sounds like an incredibly normal person....all things considered.

[msdeb]

she forgot to mention her steroid use.

[celeb_2006]

Yea it's cool she's good with her own body and not resorting to drastic binge and dieting to "conform" to hollywood/fashion's "ideal" sense of beauty/physique.

[MohandasKGanja]

she forgot to mention her steroid use.

I agree.

[Palermo]

She has been looking a lot more feminine lately, and smaller.

[HWBL]

She doesn't have a steroid body, she just shows (muscle) very quickly.
I have the same body type. I remember in the eighties in the gym,
women who worked out with much heavier weights came to me to ask
for advice on getting more muscle. I couldn't even lift half of what they
lifted, but looked like the Hulk compared to them. We just show quickly.
The voice is telling in steroid use, as is the amount of body fat on the boobs
and in the face, plus the amount of bulging veins.
She has none of the characteristics.

[MohandasKGanja]

She absolutely has a steroid body. She is twice as big as the average female tennis player. Tennis is not a muscle-building sport and yet she is enormous. She plays a power game and is injured frequently - another hallmark of steroid use.

[HWBL]

Her work-outs besides her tennis playing are what builds the bulk.
Frequent injuries occur in just about any sport that is practiced at a
professional level or fanatic level. A body can only take so much working
out. When you're totally clean, but you exceed the natural limits of
what your body can handle you're asking for physical injuries.

[Chilly Willy]

She is definitely on steroids, her sister, too.

[BlameItOnVanity]

I don't much about tennis or steroid use.
I do know some women of west african descent (as the williams sisters probably are given that they are african-american) who have a very large, bulky, muscly frame naturally. To me the williams don't look any different.

[Sarzy]

I've heard rumours that Serena and Nadal are steroid users. I'm sure there are more too. As with most sports.

[MohandasKGanja]

Tennis is notoriously lax in its anti-doping testing. It's out-of-competition testing is incredibly lame compared to other sports, such as track.

[*DIVA!]

I don't believe that Serena and Venus are on steroids...

[MrsDark]

Me either. And this is coming from someone who used to work out amongst a shitload of steroid vs non-steroid users.

I do give them props for not giving a shit what people think in that they're not starving themselves and avoiding anything diet or workout-wise that might help retain or put on more muscle in order to retain the "appropriate thinness and (lack of) muscle mass" like most women out there as much in the public eye as they are.

In my heyday of lifting the heaviest of free weights, there were several of months out of the year (I'd be a little leaner in the summer months, which made me look smaller in my clothing) when I looked like a mini version of this. And it was purely a combo of my genetics vs power lifting that I happened to be doing at the time.