F you is right, gotta live and enjoy life regardless

[theking]

If you got it, flaunt it: Why these grandmas say 'bikinis don't have an age limit'

It is officially hot grandma summer.

Traditionally the word grandmother inspires images of cozy turtlenecks and sensible shoes. But such is not the case for these bikini-rocking grandmothers who are transforming the idea of what a typical grandma looks like, one two-piece at a time.

"Bikinis don't have an age limit," 47-year-old grandmother and personal trainer Shantea Johnson tells Yahoo Life.

Johnson, known as "nana" and "glam-ma" to her six grandchildren, views wearing bikinis as a way to show off her hard work, an homage to her past self who wouldn't dream of putting on a two-piece.

"I didn't even think about wearing bikinis and things like that," Johnson says, adding that it wasn't until she began competing in fitness competitions that she gained the confidence to rock skin-baring swimwear.

"I went through my own transformation, where I lost 20 pounds, and I started doing fitness competitions," she says. "You're loving what your body looks like so you want to wear stuff that shows off your hard work," she says.

For some women, a change in perspective helped them embrace their bikini bodies post-grandkids.

After seeing a throwback photo of herself, Jennifer Vanderslice, a 57-year-old grandmother of two, realized how damaging her hyper-critical self-view had been.

"In my late 30s I had my husband take a picture of me in Las Vegas in a bikini and I hated the picture and I wouldn't show it to people. It wasn't until I guess about 10 years later or something like that, when I saw the picture again, and I realized … how good the picture actually was," she tells Yahoo Life.

Now Vanderslice refuses to let history repeat itself and actively chooses to embrace her body in the moment.

"I may look in the mirror and [look] a little heavier, you know, a little rounder and I realized that it's not necessarily the way everybody sees you. What I see is not what everybody else sees and in another 10 years, I'll look back and I'll think, 'I probably looked pretty good,'" she says.