I have always hated going to my doctor every year for my mandatory physical. When I was younger I would scream and cry because I wouldn't want my blood taken. As I got older, I dreaded them weighing me more than than poking me with a butterfly needle.

If anyone knows me or has talked to me in the past, I've always made jokes of how fat I was as a child. And I was fat, don't tell me I wasn't. I was probably in third grade when I started to really get insecure about my weight and how I looked, so I hated the doctors office even more because every year it was a reminder that I was fat. My doctor would always lecture me on what I should do to loose the weight but, the way my doctor talked about it made me feel worse. I would try to just put that "advice" in the back of my mind. Over the years, I just dealt with it but I was starting to understand that I am fat and that is never going to change.

Around the age of 12, my body started to change just like any other girl my age and I was the lowest weight I had ever been. 173 lbs. ; that was the number that the doctor praised me for, that is the number engraved in my head, that is the number younger me would've strived to achieve no matter what the cost was. Flash forward a year, when I was headed back to the doctor, eager to see what I weighed because I never had the guts to weigh myself at home. I ended up weighing more and I didn't understand how that was possible. That was when my doctor told me this, "Emily, you have a problem. You can't keep going this way or it will be bad." or something along those lines, but she basically told me I had an eating problem. That is why I hate going to the doctor's office.

Even though I changed to a new doctor, I still feel that judgement and embarrassment I felt as a child. I know I am overweight and I am trying to work on that. The problem is that when these doctors made me feel like I was forced to loose weight the "bad" way, they made me feel like I had to workout, but not because I wanted to get healthier, because I feared their judgment of who I am on the outside.

My mindset today is to workout for fun, stress relief, and to get healthy, not to loose weight! I have been doing strength workouts too and I watch what I eat. However, I still weigh "a lot." Despite this, I have noticed that I have gained a lot more muscle and my friend told me that muscle weighs more than fat. I still have fat on me, but I am trying to improve myself based off how I feel, not by the number on the scale!

Well, I have my doctor's appointment tomorrow and even though I know I have improved health wise, I am still "FAT" and I am still worried that I will get looks and lectures on how to loose weight from my doctor who doesn't fully know me at all. I have overcome not being comfortable in my own skin, but the thought of people pointing that out worries me no matter how healthy I am or feel.

Love,

Emily