I’ve always been considered a “thick” girl -at least that’s what society calls it. I am not by any means “fat,” but I am also not considered the skinniest of them all. When I was in high school, I watched my friends older than me graduate and go to college, and when they came back, most people looked the same. Others may have put on a couple pounds. We always hear the horror stories about the ever so lovely “freshman fifteen,” and I’ve said from the beginning that that would never ever be me. Here I am entering my second year of college, and I’m fifteen pounds heavier than I was when I graduated high school.

I’ve been pretty active my entire life. I started cheering competitively when I was just nine years old and continued that up until my sophomore year of high school. Because of doing this sport all those years, I had really muscular legs and arms. Unfortunately the only time I ever had the slightest bit of a 6-pack was when I was about ten, and that quickly went away. Because I was so muscular, I weighed a good bit for my age. It was never anything my doctors were ever worried about though. Of course being that young of an age, I really didn’t care about how much I weighed or what I looked like, I just wanted to have fun.

So fast forward to my sophomore year of high school, and here I am sitting at the doctor’s office, with my X-rays in his hands and he’s telling me I can’t cheer anymore (competitively anyway). In a way, this broke my heart, but on the other hand, I knew I was getting to the point of hanging it up. I made the decision to quit cheering competitively and just cheer for the football team on Fridays, and I was okay with that. After a couple months of not cheering, I notice my body doing some funky things. I was losing weight relatively fast, and I was confused as to why this was happening. I hadn’t been eating any differently. The only thing I changed was the amount of sugary drinks I was taking in each day. Then one day, it hit me. I was losing my muscle mass. In my entire life, I’ve never had to go to the gym regularly because I was getting in all my exercise at practice, and now that I wasn’t chunking girls up in the air every day, my muscles were turning to mush. At the time, I just thought it was cool that I was getting skinnier, so I just went with it. That worked for a little while.

Then, I went to college. During my freshman year, I was constantly staying up late at the library studying. Then of course it would be 2am, and I would be starving. Let’s be honest, nobody wants some carrots to snack on at 2am when they’ve been studying all night. They want chips or French fries or even just coffee to get them through the night. Staying up late and eating salty foods are not two things you want to be doing if you’re trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Well one thing led to another and I’m now fifteen pounds heavier than I use to be. I freaked when I was home visiting and the doctor told me I weighed as much as I did. My mom freaked out a little too. I didn’t really look any different though. That was the weird thing. I had gained a little belly fat, but that was it. From then to now, I have tried to be a little more cautious of what I put into my body, but being a college student, of course I slip up.

A couple months ago, I was searching for a new job. My brother-in-law told me about this place called Juice Bar located in my college town in Tennessee. I worked at a local juice bar in my hometown for a year and a half during high school, so I thought this place would be perfect for me. I got the job there, and since I’ve been dealing with trying not to gain any more bad weight, it hasn’t just been another job for me. It’s been an opening to a new lifestyle. Now, I still enjoy my burger and French fries whenever I can get it, but working at this new juice bar, I’ve learned so much more about juicing, what foods are good for what, etc. Although I am still fighting with myself, I am inspired daily with the people that come in telling us their stories about how juicing and eating right has essentially saved their lives.

So basically what I am getting at here is that you don’t need to be discouraged with yourself just because you gain a little weight at college. I think everyone gains a little no matter what they do. You don’t have Mom to cook you dinner every night, and it’s just almost impossible to cook for yourself every single night and do all the things you need to do to be successful in school. As long as you try to eat right and exercise as much as you can, you have to let your body do things on its own. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who is perfectly happy with the way they look. Stop worrying about the way you look and start worrying about the way you feel. It’s whenever you start feeling bad that you need to be concerned. I am still 10-15 pounds heavier than I use to be, and I’ve just learned to accept it. I’m still going to try to exercise and eat better, but I want to do that to feel good, not necessarily to lose weight. No matter what I weigh or what I look like, I know that I still have my friends, family, and my boyfriend that love me the same, and that’s all that matters to me.