I gained weight the way most people do. One day during second semester, my pants started to feel tight, I felt like I had to hold my belly in more and I realized that in the mirror I started to look a little puffy. Lucky for me high-waisted pants were in style. At first I was in denial, I would lose it in a week, no big deal. After a couple of weeks, I started to feel a little more uncomfortable; but I was so stressed I didn’t want to make a huge adjustment to what I was eating. Eating made me feel better, it gave me a second to chill out during my hectic day. Was this unhealthy? Totally! But I didn’t want to realize how it was effecting me.
To be honest, I was really upset with myself. I had this idea in my head about gaining weight that it was a totally shameful thing to do. I felt like I had let myself down, I felt worthless. I would force myself to eat less and less every day, as a result I was hungry all the time. When I got hungry and didn’t have enough left in me to shame myself I would stuff as much food in me as I could. Whenever I would go to work out I would never be trying hard enough for myself, I wanted to go longer and harder and didn’t want to let myself stop. The way I would talk to myself was so rude, telling myself that I wasn’t worth anything and that no one would like me if I was this size. I was horrible to myself! I was irritable, hated my body and hated the person I had become.
Just to be clear, I had gained fifteen pounds. I wasn’t severely burdening my health, I wasn’t becoming obese or having to go out and buy new clothes. Yet, I was becoming more and more unhealthy by the way I was treating myself. I would stand in the mirror and hate the hips I had gotten for my nineteenth birthday. I prodded at the tiny slice of fat that had appeared on my lower belly. My thighs had grown closer and closer together, they were the definition of thunder.
The problem was that I was becoming more and more unhealthy not because of my weight but because I had decided to treat my body like a battle ground.
There was one day when I was really feeling the worst. Take your most tired day and times it by ten. I was absolutely exhausted. I got out of bed, went to the bathroom to wash my face and thought about how much I dreaded going to class.
As I walked back into my room I had a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror. It was so strange, I had to look again. I stared at myself in my full length mirror. In my morning haze I thought I needed glasses. I finally stripped down until I was wearing my bra and underwear and I just looked at myself. When I looked at the layer of fat that had spread like butter on my belly, it seems to contour with my breathing. I realized that it was protecting my lungs. I saw my hips in a whole new way too, they were waves on my body that balanced out my tiny waist and large chest. When they weren’t trying to be confined by jeans that were too small for them they looked good on me. My thunder thighs had transformed into strong legs that supported my every movement. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. After months of waging war on my body, was I finally seeing things that I liked about myself? Not just that, but the exact things that I hated is what made my body beautiful? Could it be that I had finally laid down my gun?
It turns out, I was just too tired to criticize my body. I was so done with being angry at myself for gaining weight, my brain had just given out on being mean. I realized that I had been so unhappy that it never occurred to me that it wasn’t worth the grief. So what that I gained some weight? I had a family that loved me, friends that were there for me, I went to a good school and I had a roof over my head. My body wasn’t failing, it wasn’t dying, I was just being human.
It just so happens that that day was the first day that I saw true beauty in myself. I have never loved my body more than right now. I wake up every morning and am grateful for the skin that I am in. I adore the way hair falls and the way my toes are crooked. I love the way my double chin shows up when I laugh really hard and the way my back looks in a halter dress. I am grateful for all of these things and more.
Somedays it’s so hard. Somedays I go right back to that ashamed person I was when I gained the weight. But every time this happens it gets easier and easier to get myself back, to be able to look in the mirror and like what I see.
I try hard to respect my body now. I exercise, feed myself good food, and sleep for a reasonable amount of time. I don’t do this because I want to look a certain way or weigh a certain number, I do it because I deserve it. I deserve to be respected by myself and everyone I meet.
I know the “Freshman Fifteen” has a big, scary reputation. For me it just means one thing, I finally love myself.
