Dear World,

For many years, I have struggled to look at my reflection in the mirror and tell myself that I am beautiful. But the battle to love my physical appearance is over.

I remember when I first started playing sports at a competitive level (around age 7), because it was when I began to hate my body. Consistently I found myself comparing my large, chubby, and extremely tall body to those of the average sized girls around me. Running was never my strong suit, but beating boys who were way older than me in boxing matches was.

To put my large size into perspective -- when I was in second grade, my mom had to order my cheer uniform from the petite women’s catalog. In the third grade, she bought me my first sports bra. In the fourth grade, I bought my first pair of male basketball shorts, simply because they were the only shorts long enough for me in the sporting goods store. In the seventh grade, I bought my first bra from a plus-size store.

So, yeah. I was cute, chubby, had a unibrow (thank goodness for threading), and abnormally tall. Unlike most, clothes shopping had never been fun for me, mostly because of my broad shoulders, stomach and long legs.

However, something inside of me has changed. I, now, suddenly love clothes shopping: walking with confidence into the plus-sized store to buy my bra, and catching myself looking at myself in the fitting room mirror in a positive fashion.

I am proud to say that I have lost almost all of my chubbiness. During the past few years, I have lost somewhere around 65 pounds. There were times when I fell into ruts in my diet and exercise regime; however, for the most part I have stayed strong.

Amidst all of my emotional turmoil, I have realized that losing weight for me wasn’t something that I just wanted to do; it was something that I had to do.

I am a college athlete. Each and every day on my college campus I put in my maximum effort towards both my education and sport. Something that I realized during my freshman year of college was that, though my weight loss was helpful, my body was not strong. I needed to develop a lot of muscle. All in all, I really needed to be big.

So, here I am today. I can run just around five miles, swim laps for an hour every day, am gluten free and I love myself.

God made me big. I stand at 5 feet 11.5 inches (6 feet in cleats), have extremely large shoulders, have to wear tall pants and can almost never successfully find swim tops in department stores. Despite being larger than most, I have come to terms with my body. I am an athlete, and I was made for a purpose. My size is for a purpose.

I know that I am not the only girl out there who has either been embarrassed by height, weight or even both. Small or large, I am here to tell you: You are not alone. I have learned that it is OK to love myself, but I also need to be so extremely thankful that the Creator has made me this way. Religious or not, I hope that other people come to realize that they are beautiful and special in their own ways, too.