When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? The answer has always been “no”, for me. All through middle and high school, I felt I was too fat, too chubby, too much. I developed poor eating habits like binging on fatty food for hours one day, and not eating at all the next. I would work out, hard, every day for a week, and then not work out at all for two. I tried calorie counting, dieting, fasting, binging and purging, and so many other crash diets to try and look myself in the eye and say, “I look thin today.”
What I didn’t know was that being “thin” is not necessarily being healthy, and that was the missing puzzle piece to feeling good about myself. I believed that thin and healthy went hand in hand, so I was in constant battle with food, the scale, and the mirror.
My senior year of high school, I made a change. I decided that I was not born to be 120 pounds and I had to be okay with that. I discovered that looking good came after feeling good, not before. I worked out consistently and did the research to find healthier substitutes for the fatty foods I craved. I established a routine, which was the key to becoming who I wanted to be. My house and school were full of better eating options, I just had to do a little extra work to find them. Eventually, I found myself with more energy, better sleep, and I felt good about the girl looking back at me in the mirror.
Now, here at Hofstra, my routine has changed. My class schedule isn’t the 8-hour days of high school, and it’s much harder to pass by a burger from Bits and Bytes, or Chinese food from the Student Center.
What keeps me motivated to stay fit and healthy on campus is the campus itself. While it does offer temptations and indulgences, it also allows you to be your best self, if you take advantage of it. I go to free yoga classes every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I aim for fat-free frozen yogurt from Red Mango instead of Ben and Jerry’s from Dutch Treats. I always take the stairs, even in the towers (unless I’m going to the 13th floor, then it’s elevator all the way).
Hofstra offers opportunities to make healthier choices, the key is to make those choices. College also comes with new people, meaning new pressures and expectations for how girls are “supposed” to look. Remember that “skinny” and “healthy” are not synonyms, and the people you should be hanging out with are the people who accept you for who you are. Making healthy decisions on your own for the first time (aka, without your mom) can be daunting, but being in college is all about taking care of yourself, and the best thing you can do to look good on the outside is to feel good on the inside. Make good choices, and remember that, no matter what, you’re beautiful.