This is a phrase I have heard multiple times in my life at different times. The first time was when I was starting high school. I was a Freshman and trying out for the cheerleading team at a new school. I don't really know when it happened, but that year I became really unhealthy and lost a lot of weight. The crazy part is that I thought I was being healthy, and I got so many compliments from friends, family, and random people about how much weight I lost and how good I looked. I was working out in addition to playing sports, severely limiting myself when it came to carbs, drinking nothing but water, and not eating dinner. The feeling of hunger became normal to me. When I would get that familiar pit in my stomach I remember thinking to myself "This is a good thing. This means I'm losing weight." I was obsessed. I lost two pants sizes and still thought I needed to be smaller. I remember being somewhat happy with the way that I looked, but not enough. I kept on for the entirety of my Sophomore year of High School. I wasn't eating enough, and looking back at pictures from that year I can see that I was too small. Maybe not by others' standards, but by my own. Everyone is different, and everyone has a different "healthy" weight. I was under that. I was unhealthy. But I was happy otherwise. I had just transferred to a new school, had a wonderful boyfriend, and was receiving compliments on my weight loss from seemingly everyone. Occasionally I would have dinner with friends, family, or my boyfriend, but I would avoid it as much as I could. Until one night, something snapped inside of me. When I got that familiar pit in my stomach, instead of ignoring it like usual, I thought to myself "This is not normal. Your body is telling you it is hungry. Stop." And I did. From then I got better, but I also put on some weight. I was still eating healthy and staying active, but I wasn't being as restrictive as I had been. Over the next two years I would put on a little more weight, but I wasn't as big as I thought I was. I was a normal, healthy weight. My Senior year I went to a weight loss doctor with my mom. They put me on appetite suppressant pills that made my mouth so dry I was miserable. I don't remember them working, and I don't remember being able to stick to the ridiculous diet they put me on. I wasn't overweight. I just wanted to be smaller. I was comparing myself to my friends who had much smaller builds than I, which wasn't fair. I was strong. I was a cheerleader and I played soccer. I was in shape and eating healthy, but food was always an enemy of mine. I didn't know how to balance eating healthy and not restricting myself. That became an even bigger issue in college.
Forward to my Freshman year of college. My family and I had just gone through some of the hardest few months, and I was depressed. However, I was taking a yoga class and working out with my boyfriend and a friend. I was in shape and pretty healthy, but ignoring the depression the best I could. I kept granola bars and other "healthy" foods in my dorm, but eating at the cafeteria made it difficult to stay healthy. If you've ever had a meal plan at a University then you know the cafeteria pretty much sucks. The best thing to eat there was pizza and cereal. I tried my best to eat healthily and avoid carbs and bad foods at all costs, but one day I got tired of it. I was so damn tired of restricting myself. I let myself drink a cherry coke, and God it was good. It's absolutely ridiculous writing about that now. I couldn't tell you the last time I had a drink that wasn't coffee, water, or diet soda. I believe that day started a different unhealthy lifestyle for me. I just stopped giving a shit. I stopped caring so much and let myself have whatever I wanted, as long as I was making some healthy choices. I lived on campus so I walked everywhere, which helped. But once I started working my second semester, I didn't have the time to work out regularly. I was a hostess at a local restaurant, so I was walking a good bit and staying on my feet. That also helped, but I was still allowing myself to have pizza and ice cream and soda and wasn't working out regularly to stay healthy. I don't think I put on any weight during my Freshman year, but I definitely started some bad habits.
The Summer before my Sophomore year of college, Dakota and I moved in together. We quickly realized that apartments and living, in general, are expensive, especially when you are both full-time students working part-time jobs. We both tried to stay healthy by walking to class, eating well, and going to the gym. However, we were on a tight budget and the $8 pizza was easier and cheaper than chicken and vegetables. That year I still managed to stay healthy and at a smaller size. However, it was that year that I started noticing my anxiety and depression was becoming worse, and I was struggling with school and my choice of major. I even considered dropping out of school, which was definitely not me. I went to therapy, things got easier, and I continued to be as healthy as possible. Flash forward to Junior year of college, I was working in a negative environment, sitting for the majority of my day, and I had put on some weight seemingly out of nowhere. I remember feeling like I had no control over my body, because surely what I was doing wasn't cause for the weight gain. I was still eating as healthily as possible and walking a good bit on campus, but within a year I had gained 45 pounds. I was a mess. I felt horrible about myself. I felt helpless. I felt awful. Anyway, there I was going into my Senior year of college and I was overweight, stressed, and anxious. But I want to make it clear that I was still happy. I had a wonderful fiance, family, and friends. I was doing decently in school and had even just finished an internship. But I was unhappy with the weight gain and the fact that I couldn't lose it even with the changes I had been making. I eventually went to the doctor and she put me on thyroid medicine for my recently discovered hypothyroidism and a very strict diet for the weight gain. I ended up losing 10 pounds, but couldn't afford the diet so I did my best with what I could do. I still felt horrible, though. My anxiety was an ever-present being in my life, I was exhausted, and I just overall felt like crap. When I went to the clinic on campus, the doctor shrugged my symptoms off and focused on the fact that I wasn't on birth control that is a whole other conversation. Now I know that the reasons hormonal birth control always made me feel horrible are because my body doesn't react well to it for a lot of reasons, one being my hypothyroidism. Anyway, when the beginning of 2018 came around I knew I had a big year ahead of me: college graduation and a wedding. I wanted so badly to lose the weight to fit into the wedding dress that I had gotten a few years prior, but I knew that it wasn't going to happen. So, I got a new wedding dress that I felt beautiful in. I had come to terms with being a "plus-size" bride, and it is absolutely ridiculous that I had to "come to terms" with it. Brides of all sizes are absolutely beautiful. I was just trying so hard to not let my weight affect my wedding day. Well, friends, it did. But not as much as I thought it would. After graduation, Dakota and I got a gym membership and went frequently. We tried to eat healthily and exercise as much as possible, but I just couldn't lose weight. Now, at this point, I had been off of my thyroid medicine for a while because of insurance and doctors and all of that mess. I know now that hypothyroidism makes it very difficult to lose weight, and I wish I would have known that sooner so I wouldn't have been so hard on myself. When the wedding day finally came around, I didn't even worry about my weight. I felt beautiful. It was such a beautiful and amazing day, and I was so happy. Today, almost 6 months later, I look back at my wedding photos and feel beautiful. There were times where I felt that I looked "fat" or "too big", and in those times I was feeling down about myself. But ultimately I felt beautiful on that day, even with my extra weight.
I am now working on losing the weight so that I can be a healthier me. I learning more about nutrition and exercise and focusing on how I feel. I am working on having a good relationship with food and exercise. I am doing my best to stay body positive throughout the process, but on days like today where I am hating my body, it is very difficult. Those feelings come and go. My goals are to be healthy, energized, happy, and less anxious. The weight that will come off in the process will be a plus, but it is no longer my main goal. I believe everybody is beautiful, and that society has trained us to feel unworthy and ugly if we don't look a certain way. I have longed for a smaller body for most of my life, and I am so over it. My body will never look like the ones in most of the media, and that's ok. Those bodies are beautiful, and so is mine.
What I love about our world now is that body positivity and size inclusivity are becoming very present in the media. We are learning to love and embrace all bodies, and that is amazing. Just know that you are beautiful, and your worth isn't defined by your size or a number on the scale. And next time you start to ask someone, "Have you lost weight?", instead comment on how happy they look. Or ask about how they are doing. You never know how much that small change might mean to someone.
The picture used in this post is from my Freshman year of High School when I was underweight.