I was 14 when I first began to follow the online fitness community. I was emerging from years of middle school bullying, shamed for being on the chubbier side. The girl I was back then hated herself for not fitting into a specific mold, constantly comparing herself to anyone and everyone she could — girls on social media, girls walking past on the street, girls I saw at school. Everyone was either prettier and more desirable than I was or someone who could make me feel better about my appearance. It was a horrible, judgmental mentality, and unfortunately, it’s one that many young girls grow up with today.

I live on the coast, which means that most of my summer is spent at the beach. But I never could enjoy it, always feeling too out of place in a bikini. Instead, I opted for one piece swimsuits (which I never found to be properly fitting or flattering) or shied away from going to the beach at all. While my friends spent their summers dodging waves and laying on the hot sands, I hid out in my bedroom pretending that I hated the beach, all because I never felt comfortable wearing a swimsuit with my fleshy, chubby, pre-teen body.

In the fall of my freshman year, I finally decided to do something about it, and became involved in the online fitness community commonly referred to as the “fitspo” community. At first it seemed great. This was a community full of positivity that sought to help people reach their physical goals through fitness. I began to run, work out every day and cut unhealthy foods out of my diet. And very quickly, I saw noticeable changes, continuously dropping pounds until I grew closer and closer to what I viewed as the “physical ideal."

I followed hundreds of Instagram accounts dedicated to promoting working out and eating healthy, spending hours every day scrolling through photos of pretty girls in bikinis as “motivation.” At one point, I even set a photo of a bunch of tan, skinny girls as my phone screensaver, so that any time I opened my phone, I would see the photo and be reminded not to eat that donut, not to skip my run, not to forget to drink enough water. I was addicted to feeling like I was making progress, trying on new clothes every weekend to see if they had gotten any looser. Sure, I looked better (in the societally pleasing way; ie: I was skinny), but I thought constantly about what I was eating, to the point where I would cancel plans because I didn’t want to be faced with the prospect of eating unhealthy foods.

It quickly became clear to me that I was taking the concept of “fitspo” too far. I am naturally self-competitive, challenging myself to always be the best version of myself I can be, and I had begun to feel as though it would never be enough. I could always run faster, buy tighter shorts, push myself harder in boxing classes, eat less and less for dinner. There would always be a higher standard that I could push myself to reach, many unhealthy and unreasonable. It wasn’t until I went to Paris to study abroad that summer that I finally gave it up, choosing to enjoy my time abroad rather than focus on following my strict regimen. However, while I was there, I gained back much of the weight I had lost, and returned home with the same mentality I had left with. And so the cycle continued.

Now, four years later, I probably weigh the same as I did going into freshman year. But I don’t look at myself in the mirror and despise my reflection. Instead, I choose to embrace my “thunder thighs,” choose to love the bulging muscles of my arms, the love handles around my waist. I proudly wear a bikini and I feel good about myself in it. The idea that an enjoyable summer should only be relegated to those with perfect bodies is absolutely absurd; I have a beach body simply because I have a body, and it is beautiful because I think so, not because some advertising company or television commercial tells me so. I may not have ever achieved the washboard abs and slim arms that I used to long for, but I am as happy with myself now as I was then. I still work out almost every day, and I eat more healthily than I ever did before (healthy being that I now know it’s alright to treat myself every once in awhile).

A bikini body is nothing more than a concept, and it shouldn’t matter to us. But, unfortunately it does. That’s why we need to re-define it; if we can’t abolish it completely, then we can at least work to fit the definition to be closer to what it actually is: someone’s body in a bikini. That’s it. That’s all it is. Intertwining being “in shape” with being prepared for summer is preposterous, and for many, it causes the season to lose its luster, becoming something to despise rather than something to enjoy. I used to be one of those people.

But, this summer, I want something different. This summer I’m claiming my own body, for all its flaws and faults, but for its successes as well. It’s my body, and I love it, whether that be in a bikini on the beach or in jeans and a sweater in the snow.