Tennis Pro Jelena Dokic Shows Off Her "Size 16" Figure: "I Love My Body"

Jelena Dokic is sharing a message of self-love – in her swimsuit. In a new social media post, the tennis star, who has struggled with her weight over the years, shows off her figure and shares a body confident message. “It’s not the size of a person that matters but the size of a person’s heart that matters the most,” she started off the caption. How has she struggled with her weight and what has she learned in the process? Here is everything you need to know.

1. Thyroid Disease Led to Weight Gain

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In 2019 Jelena discussed her weight battle with The Daily Telegraph, maintaining that her weight doubled from 132 to 264 as a result of thyroid illness. At the time, she had already lost 66 pounds of it with another 66 to go. “I was exactly double my weight and it has been a really challenging journey trying to lose it,” Dokic said. “I am halfway now, it’s a work in progress and I hope to drop another 30kg over the next six months.” She added that it wasn’t just “the numbers on the scale” that motivated her. “This is about feeling good and healthy. It’s about eating right, exercising most days, changing my lifestyle for the long term. It’s about feeling good mentally and physically. It’s not just about losing the kilos it’s also about gaining confidence and self-esteem as well.”

2. Weight Loss Is a “Mental Battle”

“I put at least half of the weight on because of my thyroid, I just ballooned and couldn’t do anything about it for almost 12 months,” she continued. “Since I started committing to weight loss last year it has been more a mental battle losing weight because I am also used to working very hard with tennis but I couldn’t do a lot of physical work because of my thyroid condition. That condition made it incredibly difficult to lose the weight. You may think in your head you want to lose 10, 15kg in a month but it doesn’t go like that. For me I have had to learn patience. At times you might lose four or five kilograms very quickly but then you might not. You only drop one or two kilograms.”

3. Consistency and Positivity

“I wanted to give up sometimes but it was about keeping consistent and positive,” Dokic continued. “You have to think about your goals. You might have weeks and weeks where you haven’t made progress but then it happens, you lose weight again. You need to be patient. Remember you don’t gain it in one month so you don’t lose it in one month. You have to stay more mentally strong than physically. Trying to stick with a diet is a bigger challenge than any of the physical stuff.”

4. Light Exercise

Dokic started with light exercise, like hitting tennis balls for up to two hours, running, and walking.“I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I couldn’t run, play tennis, jumps, run stairs, because of my thyroid condition I was really struggling,” Dokic said. “So I had to just walk at the beginning. I would walk up hills slowly. That took a little bit of time.”

5. Running

She then was able to progress her activity. “I didn’t do intense physical activity for a while. I only could start running after I lost the first 15kg. Then I slowly started running,” she revealed.

6. Hydration

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As for her diet she ditched “sugary drinks and snacks,” and started drinking green tea with ginger and three liters of water a day.

7. Other Dietary Changes

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“Mainly the first thing I did was be careful with all the drinks, sweets and sugar,” she dished. “That was the first thing I completely tried to take out. I really tried to limit sugar. It was not so much the carbohydrates at the start, it was the sugar that I cut out. For me that is what I react to the best. I also really started to take notice of food labels. I started looking at the fat content, good fats, bad content, protein content, carb content and especially the sugar. I really started to educate myself about nutrition. I also started to weigh food to control the portions. Fish and vegetables have literally become my staple meal.”

8. Body Confidence

“So here is my size 16 body,just to make it clear, and I don’t care anyway. I sooooo embrace my size and my body,” Jelena writes in her latest post. But I know that my heart is a lot bigger than my size and that is what I am proud of,what matters and what I care about the most. And for those that don’t think that way and think the other way around that says all about them and not me. I love my body,I love who I am and I embrace it. I focus on how big my heart and kindness is. That’s what truly matters. That is how I truly became body confident and why I have a positive body image. Embrace yourself,focus on the real important values and tell everyone else that body shames you to go away (that’s the nice way of saying it 🥰). Love your body, love yourself and be a good person. That’s all that matters at the end of the day.”