My Body is a Wonderland

I was never one of the skinny girls, and my weight is something I always struggled to accept. I have tried different workout plans, dieting, and even weight loss supplements over the years, and nothing ever got me to where I wanted to be. It has taken me such a long time to come to accept my body for what it is, and now that I finally have I realize how much energy I wasted hating it for so long.

I noticed a difference in my body in comparison to other girls when I was as young as eight-years-old! I did not necessarily think there was a problem with it, but I knew it was different for sure. My parents and relatives always said it was baby fat and something I would grow out of as I got older and went through puberty. Although the number on the scale did not change, when I hit puberty my body fat re-proportioned itself, so I understood what they meant about baby fat because my body changed majorly.

Even though my body was changing for what seemed better, this is when I started feeling very insecure about my body. With all of the changes, puberty is a very vulnerable time for all young girls, and this really made my self-confidence plummet. I remember being in the seventh grade and wanting nothing more then to wear a bikini in the summer like all of the other girls my age, but I did not look like them. Looking back, it is almost funny to me because it is not like girls really have curves at that age, pretty much everyone was flat-chested, so I really just wanted a flat stomach. So that summer, I still covered up in my one piece, come the summer after eighth grade I started wearing bikinis, but I still was not happy with the way I looked in them.

In high school my insecurities continued, it was like I was battling myself on a daily basis. Come my sophomore year of high school, I grew obsessive with my weight, at this point in time I had dance class for about 6 hours per week, and on top of that I started eating like a rabbit, taking weight loss supplements, and had a crazy home workout regimen that I forced myself through daily, no matter how late I got home from dance class – and on a fifteen-year-old that’s a lot. Plus, the supplements made me feel very sick. I dropped about twenty pounds in a little over a month – which is not healthy for anyone – and I was at a healthy weight for my height, but of course I still was not happy with it. At this time, my stomach was almost flat, but I still did not look like other girls; I had love handles and large thighs and the other girls did not have those.  Almost immediately after I stopped taking the supplements late spring of that year the weight gain began.

Between the summer going into my junior year and today, the end of the second semester of my freshman year, I have gained fifty pounds – including the freshman fifteen. Of course, I do not blame anyone or anything aside from myself for my weight gain, I had to stop dancing in order to focus on my academics, I slowly stopped working out as much as I was, I was eating more, and I stopped the supplements. Today, I am fifty pounds heavier than I was in the photo above and I am probably fifty times happier. Looking back, I still felt like I was so far from my goal and I was unhappy that I was struggling to maintain the weight loss when I stopped taking the supplements. Now, I have come to accept and love my body for what it is because I just have a different body type than other girls, I have curves and I embrace them now.

I now realize that I was not so stuck on losing weight because of the other girls, it was because society trains us to believe that the body type that a lot of those girls had is beautiful. For example, Victoria’s Secret released a campaign in 2013 featuring the Victoria’s Secret Angels called “The Perfect Body.” Meanwhile, that body is unattainable for so many women, like me.  The media holds such a dangerous power over us and in this situation it has the power to make us feel negative about ourselves.

Ultimately, I still believe in weight loss and healthy goals, but I do not believe in obsessing over weight anymore. I understand some people have health concerns attached to weight and in those situations, of course, losing weight is a smart option. I believe that we should strive to be our healthiest self, and more times than not that self will not look like the women in the advertisement above.