Working out on the regular is a new thing for me. I went from trying diet after diet and following highly-acclaimed celebrity recipes that swore that I would lose seven pounds in a week. There was a time when I just accepted that I would never lose weight and I would always have back rolls and not be able to wear cute clothes as I wanted — that's when I became depressed about my weight and self-conscious about how I looked.
I hated P.E. in school because I felt out of place. I hated wearing tank tops to go to the store because I felt like my arms were too big. I quit dancing for some time because I was the biggest kid in the room. I hated myself overall. Add moving to college on top of that and I had the "Freshman 15" to deal with. The first time I went home and went to my old job to visit some of my old co-workers and classmates who were still there, one of my former co-workers made a comment about my face getting fat.
I was embarrassed. I was a mess.
I decided that I would start to exercise to get healthier and stay on top of things, so I went walking in the amphitheater (but when snakes began to appear, I disappeared) and then I tried going to these big elaborate gyms like Planet Fitness, but in a large gym I felt out of place.
I felt like people were watching me on the steps, watching me run on the treadmill, and mocking me when I would go do squats. I felt eyes everywhere and it made me uncomfortable, so I stopped working out altogether and succumbed to the 15-pound weight gain. I was even more miserable and I couldn't blame anybody but myself.
I sat around and let myself gain the 15 pounds when I knew that with the beautiful spring weather, I could go outside for a quick 15-minute jog. I knew that I could have forced myself to go to the campus gym for at least an hour. There were so many things that I could have done to avoid the weight gain, but because I was too self-conscious of myself and thought too much about what others in the gym would say, I held back.
When I moved into my apartment that has a small gym, I learned to love exercising and I learned to accept my body.
The more intimate setting made me feel comfortable sweating after I just spent 30 minutes on the treadmill. The small space gave me a chance to not just stare at myself in the mirror and see the "tired" on my face. I was able to appreciate the hour and forty-five minutes I spent in the gym, sometimes alone or with one other person in the gym.
The smaller gym doesn't feel as crowded. It doesn't feel intimidating. It felt like home. I'm still a mess and my body isn't where I want it to be, but I've accepted that over time, I'll get to that goal weight.