Suzanne Shaw in Bathing Suit Asks "What is Perfect?"

Suzanne Shaw is flaunting her "flaws" in her swimsuit. The British actress looks beautiful in a bathing suit in one of her latest social media posts, sharing a message of self-love. My perfect, your perfect, their perfect! What is perfect? How I see myself has played a big part on my mental health, trying to chase the figure and the image I 'should' have for the line of work I chose. It's taken up A LOT of my thinking and to be frank I'm quite embarrassed about that! What a waste of time and energy!!!!" she wrote in the Instagram caption. "BUT PLEASE I am begging the massively influential celebrities and platforms to drop the smoke and mirrors and embrace it all!!! It's so damaging to so many who are trying to chase the impossible! Including myself for so long. And what for? Because good looks sell? We are more popular because of how we look? Because it means success? Why? Social conditioning is causing great stress and overwhelm, particularly on the younger generation." She then went on to make a confession: "I have cellulite!" While she has tried her "absolute hardest to get rid and hide it over the years, even thinking if I could find a magic potion to get rid of it I could potentially be the richest person on the planet," she has learned to embrace it. "Cellulite is a medical term for the fatty layers under the skin, particularly as women some fat is important for us to have and to completely strip ourselves of that fat is unhealthy. Babies also have cellulite, again they need that fat too but how did the perception get changed from natural and cute to ugly and disgusting and should be hidden!! Oh yes, that's right… magazines, marketing, media, money!!! I am a huge advocate for health, physically and mentally in equal measure and that means, moving my body to keep myself strong, eating well to protect myself from illness and protecting my mind from a world that has conditioned me to think in an unhealthy way. Be you, love you and embrace you." How does she stay so fit? Read on to see 5 ways Suzanne Shaw stays in shape and the photos that prove they work—and to get beach-ready yourself, don't miss these essential 30 Best-Ever Celebrity Bathing Suit Photos!

Suzanne has been open about her weight struggles. "At the beginning of 2020 I wanted to change my lifestyle but not like I'd done in the past… starting a new regime for it to last 8 weeks max and then fall off the health wagon and then try a new type of diet or fitness regime and a few months later, fail again and turn to the blame game! I wanted to TRULY change it and not let myself down for the 20th year in a row! This time I had to look at it all differently, take a long hard look at myself in the mirror and if I'm going to be completely honest, when I did, I burst into tears realising that I'd become desperately unhappy behind the smile I'd use to cover up the pain," she wrote in a lengthy social media post. "I've never been massively overweight but I had piled on the pounds and got to the biggest I'd been without being pregnant, and it was all down to eating and drinking (alcohol) my emotions. I'd found myself stuck in my past being angry with the world and in major fear of my future – I was completely unrecognisable to myself."

Her fitness journey, which she calls The Shaw Happy Plan, started with running. "I used to only work out to get fit for jobs or if I'd overindulged, but the pandemic took away my day job and my baseline of fitness. Initially, I started running for my mental health but it's a consistent part of my lifestyle now," she told Women's Fitness.

Another thing Suzanne did was put down the bottle. "It's been a journey, but a wonderful one. I've been sober for almost two years and it's changed my life," she told Women Fitness. "I was never an alcoholic, but the self-sabotage and dark thoughts were getting too much. And I genuinely worried that if I carried on in that way, there could be a time when I did something to myself. I realised I was the only person responsible for my happiness."

Suzanne also switched to a plant-based diet. "Drinking often led me to unhealthy eating, and I also had digestion issues with animal products. Shortly before going sober, I followed a plant-based diet for two weeks, felt amazing and never looked back," she told Women Fitness. "Being sober also created much more space in my life to think about what I was putting in my body, and I even did a nutrition course which really opened my eyes. It's not until I started food journalling and really educating myself that I realised how unhealthy the world we live in is."

Finally, Suzanne keeps her head in check. "If I was going to do it this time, I had to do it for very different reasons and that reason wasn't going to be about getting into a size 8 dress, it was to be HAPPY again," she wrote in her Instagram post.