I go to the gym to feel better about myself and to feel healthy and powerful. However, this is not how it always was. A couple of years ago, I began to work out and diet because I didn't feel like I was good enough. Everyone around me was so thin and beautiful and I didn't feel beautiful because I didn't look like them.

So what did I do, I started running and eating salad, depriving myself of what I wanted. It was difficult, but the insecurities inside of me were extremely motivating. I had lost about 15 pounds and other people had begun to comment on how much weight I had lost and how good I looked now, however, I still wasn't happy about my body. Sure, I had lost weight, but I didn't look like the girls in my dance class or on the covers of magazines.

It felt like no matter what I did, I wouldn't be satisfied with what I looked like.

After giving up and gaining some of the weight back, I was in a rut. I hated looking at myself in the mirror and despised eating in front of other people. The insecurities were taking over and I was becoming less and less of myself.

On one of my low days, my mother came, who had been noticing for weeks that something wasn't right, and said, "The only reason you feel this way about yourself is because you're comparing yourself to people who aren't you. What does their body have to do with yours? You are beautiful, just in a different way."

Hearing this began to change the way I tackled the issue of my body. It did take a lot of time and effort, but I stopped looking at the negatives in my body. Every time I thought something bad about myself, I made an active effort to counter that thought with a positive one. Most importantly, I only thought about my body and avoided thinking about how everyone else looks in comparison to it. The change I saw in myself seemed miraculous. I was more confident and willing to go out and wear whatever I wanted. Little by little, I started to accept my body and understood that just because I didn't look like a model didn't mean I looked bad.

I started going to the gym again because I wanted to become stronger for myself. I liked who I was, I just wanted to improve myself.