Getting from there...to here!
To understand why I am starting this website and blog, and to learn why this lifestyle is important to me, one must first understand my story.
2002, Age 12.
Will I ever be good enough?
It begins as a preteen, a chubby girl with braces and bad hair, no understanding of how to dress my body, and a complete and total loathing of what I looked like. I’ve never perceived myself as being good enough. There was always someone prettier, smarter, skinnier, stronger. I judged myself and my body in comparison to other people: my sister, my friends, my parents. I judged myself so harshly, I ended up not knowing who I was or how to be myself. I would imitate others, dress like my peers, adopt different ways of speaking, and all around just avoid being me. I was convinced there was something wrong with me. It was very scarring. I was not good enough.
The photo on the left, even now, is terrifying for me to share. I still feel the shame and self-loathing that little girl felt every day.
Middle school and high school, as for many, were not my idea of fun. Since I didn’t know how to be myself, I made friends with people I wanted to be like. I would shop at the same stores, listen to the same music, tell the same jokes. I even tried out for the softball team following a friend. I’m TERRIBLE at sports. So terrible they cut me from the team, but felt bad and made me the manager. I so desperately wanted to fit in, to be liked, to be seen as “cool.”
By the time I hit college, I had such a bad relationship with my body and food that I didn’t know how to appreciate the body I had and all it could do for me. My freshman year, I put on the requisite “freshman 15,” enjoying all the things the cafeteria had to offer. By my senior year, I got down to my lowest weight after completing Shaun T’s INSANITY, working out several hours a day, and restricting my food intake at each meal.
2018, Age 27
I AM GOOD ENOUGH.
I spent years seeing myself in the mirror, but not really seeing myself. I would see a version of myself that I hated. Every flaw, every dimple, every stretch mark, every blemish, the extra layer of fat on my thighs and belly. I didn’t know how to eat without either binging on unhealthy food and feeling miserable or restricting myself to a very limited amount of “healthy” food...and still being miserable. I continued to watch and see how other people were perceived and imitate those qualities I deemed positive.
Though it is hard to pinpoint the singular moment where I changed from an unhappy, insecure, body conscious young girl to the hopefully confident, body positive person I am now, I attribute it to finding the “Body Positive Movement.” There, right in my feed, men and women of all sizes, races, and abilities actually loved themselves for who they were. Being body positive and loving themselves was hard for many of them, always a work in progress. And so my work in progress began. It is ever evolving, I learn new things about myself and my body every day. I want to be the best version of myself. And I’ve learned now, by being myself, I have more friends, I’m closer with my family, and I finally learned to just BE ME.