I’ve had problems with my weight for as long as I can remember. Throughout elementary school, middle school and into high school I always wondered why I looked so different from my friends and why being healthy and thin came so easily to them, yet seemed almost impossible for me. Once I hit high school and people began caring way too much about what everyone else looked like I figured it was time for a change. I’ve always been the athletic type, playing every sport I was even remotely decent at, but once I turned sixteen I took it to a whole new level.

I would run ridiculous distances to the point it would make me sick, eat meals like a rabbit and pass on dinner every now and again. I was losing weight and I loved it, but the thing is, I still didn’t love myself. I did that for a while until I realized it was not only wildly unhealthy, but it wasn’t working anymore. A year or so later, I fell off the wagon and gained the weight back-- and then some.

I spent a long time looking in the mirror and hating my reflection after that, but I did absolutely nothing about it. I would still go to the diner at 3 a.m. with my friends, eat french fries out of the window of the kitchen at my job and when I turned 21-years-old? Forget about it.

Between beer, bar pizzas and bacon cheeseburgers, I was digging myself into a hole, until one day I woke up and decided that things had to be different. I didn’t want to hate who I was anymore and the only person who could change that was me.

I missed out on a lot of things. I missed dinners with friends and bar crawls with coworkers and instead I spent that time sweating my ass off on the Stairmaster and doing army ab training exercises at the gym up the street. I would wake up every morning and start my day with a run and end it the same way. I ate enough fruit and vegetables to feed a small village. I pined over my friend's dinner plates as I quietly ate my granola bars. It was really difficult at times, you know, to do it the healthy way-- but I never wanted anything more in my life than to finally love the skin I was in.

It took a while for me to start seeing any difference; four months actually. I would look in the mirror and wonder why my hard work wasn’t paying off, until one day I finally saw what was standing in front of me.

I have lost fifty pounds since I started this journey in January. I went from being embarrassed to go out with my “pretty friends” to finally loving and embracing who I am. They’re right when they say that your body is a temple and you should treat it like one. It’s the only thing in this world that you’re stuck with forever, so you might as well go out of your way to treat it extraordinarily; or one day I promise you, you’ll look back and wish you did things differently. It’s been a long, challenging road but I’ve never been prouder of anything in my life.

Not many people can say that they want to change for the better and actually do it, but I can. I never knew how amazing life could be until the day I finally became happy with myself and I can honestly say it’s all worth it in the end.