“Have you lost weight?” It’s the thing that 14-year-old me would pay someone $40 to say, back when I wanted to lose weight. But I didn’t lose weight on purpose. It was a byproduct of finding something that I love.

I started lifting when I was 16. This was after I was practically kicked off my high school cross country team because I had a stress fracture, which left me incapable of any activity other than walking for about eight months. And after I started, it just clicked. This angry girl who felt like she didn’t belong suddenly had something to identify with. You walk into the gym and have no idea what kind of house anyone lives in or what kind of car they drive. It’s hard to feel insignificant when the significance was hiding behind barbells and weight benches. I started to love the body that society told me to hate. Who cares how big my thighs are when I know how much I can squat? Who cares how big my arms are when I know how much I can curl. It was the first time in my life I didn’t have to try to be small. I could just be me. Then I started changing my diet, finding the things to eat that gave me the best workout, finding the things that made it easiest for me to lift the heaviest.

It was the first time I felt like doing something for myself. I wasn’t doing it to get a diploma, I wasn’t doing it because my brother was good at it and I had to try to be better, I wasn’t doing it to please my parents or my teachers or anyone. It was the first thing that was mine and only mine.

And coincidentally I lost inches, because of my passion, because I finally loved me for me, because I finally found some place where I didn’t feel insignificant.

And with those four little words, none of that stuff matters. The only thing that matters is how I look, right? Not the fact that I found something to make my anxiety subside, not the fact that I found someplace where my "badass" tendencies were praised and not made fun of. No, nobody cares about that, only that you lost weight.

So, you insert yourself into something as personal as the number on the scale, or the circumference of my hips because that should make me feel good, right? Wrong. It made me feel violated. It made me feel disrespected. Like my weight is the most important thing in my life. My weight is none of your business unless I offer up that information. Would you ask me if I gained weight? No. So don’t ask me if I lost it.

One day I looked in the mirror and realized I had lost inches. So, I posted the picture above on my Instagram. Because I was proud of myself. I looked damn good. And I felt like sharing that. People asked me how I did it like there was a secret. There is no secret. Everyone knows how, but nobody wants to. And that pissed me off more. Because you assume I made a shortcut somewhere. How did I do it? I woke up every day at 5:00 a.m. and lifted before school. You work hard. That’s how you get it done.

My body is your business if I tell you about it. If I don’t, talk about the weather.

But hey, I’m just a tomboy from Indiana who cares more about how you treat others than about how much you weigh.