I have a love-hate relationship with my body. I love how strong my legs are, but I hate how big my hips are. I’m glad I have an ass, but I don’t love that I have back fat to go with it. I love how I look in a crop top, but I hate that I can’t find jeans that fit. I used to be skinny, and now I’m not really fat, but probably almost there. Not that fat is ugly, but it came on so fast that when I look in the mirror, I don’t see myself.
I was skinny, but I was tall, so I was wearing my petite sisters’ hand-me-downs in elementary school, even though they are six and ten years older than me. I always felt huge around them. I joined track in eighth grade as a pole vaulter and weighed 130 lbs, so I grabbed a pole for that weight, and my coach asked if I really weighed that much. I was the heaviest girl on the pole-vaulting team. I quit sports for high school (I was really awful), but I was happy with my body, happy enough, at least. I got my first boyfriend and started doing workouts in my room so I would stay skinny, and he would stay interested (spoiler alert: he didn’t).
My brain decided to stop working, so I had to go on a medicine that depends on my weight but also made me gain a little weight. That’s when it started. I got into a relationship with someone who loves me and supports me and, on top of the bit of weight I put on from my medicine, I put on a little bit of happy relationship weight. It was fine, maybe 10 pounds in total. It was my senior year at this point, so I was around 160-170 lbs. Perfectly normal. That summer, I went shopping with a friend and got a pair of jeans that I loved and fit, and I was so excited to wear all winter.
Then, I went to college with a meal plan, and they had unlimited desserts. I’m not going to lie, that one cake they have makes this worth it. I gained 20 pounds that first semester. The jeans don’t fit anymore. I thought if I started eating less and working out more it would go away, but so far it hasn’t. To be fair, I’m awful at being consistent with it. I’m still at 185 lbs. It’s been three years. I was at a doctor’s office, and they asked how much I thought I weighed before I stepped on the scale, which was weird, but I told her, and she didn’t believe me. I was dead on; I weighed myself that morning. She told me I carry it well. Thanks, Beth.
I’ve tried loving my body, and sometimes I do, but sometimes it’s not me in the mirror. I’ve looked like this for years, but I still can’t wrap my head around how I gained that much weight in a matter of months. I grew up with a mom who would complain about her body because she gained so much weight when she was pregnant with me and who would have me do workouts if I wanted to buy something as a kid so I wouldn’t get fat. She saw me in a crop top and told me I had more stomach than she remembered. I grew up with impossibly thin sisters; one was addicted to drugs, and the other two had eating disorders. Every time I’m around them, I want to cut all of the fat off of my stomach and shrink my hips. I haven’t had jeans that fit since that summer.