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Wellness > Health

Lose the Freshman 15: Finding the Right Weight for You

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Sara Kaner

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What’s the perfect weight?
 
1c16f8aaThat’s one loaded question, isn’t it? And one with no correct answer. Because I’m realizing more and more that there is no perfect weight for any body.
 
Why, do you ask?
 
Well, that’s simple. Because every body is different! We were all born with a different body structure, a different body mass and a completely different body make-up. We’ve all got different sized bones and we’re all certainly different heights, so there’s really no perfect weight that can dictate exactly how much one person should weigh.
 
However, there is a way to dictate what is a HEALTHY weight for a given body, and realizing the difference between being perfect and being healthy is something that I’ve definitely come to terms with this semester.
 
I’ve discovered that there’s no perfect weight for me, and I don’t think there ever will be. I’ve been overweight for most of my life and I know my body well enough to know that I’m never going to be stick-thin. And I’m okay with that.
 
a0b8f1af46ba027aBecause I’m not interested in being stick-thing, I’m really just interested in finding a healthy weight for myself – one in which I can be happy with and feel comfortable with.
 
So what exactly is a healthy weight for me? Given a Body Mass Index chart, I can actually find this number.
 
[Note: The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems. This chart is a graph of BMI.]
 
And according to this chart, I’m still overweight. At 5 feet, 2 inches, 144 pounds is considered “at risk,” thanks to a BMI of 26. Seems silly, doesn’t it?
 
Even sillier is the fact that I’ve worked so hard to lose 15 pounds this semester, yet I’m still considered “overweight?”
 
According to this chart and the BMI, I should be weighing somewhere in the 135-140 pounds range, and my BMI number should be less than 25.
 
So even though I may have lost my “freshman 15,” I’ve still got a little ways to go until I’m at a healthy weight for myself, my body and my height.

But hearing this information doesn’t diminish all of the success I’ve had this semester: as you’ll see from the picture comparison of me at the beginning of the semester (the first picture)), and me now (the second picture), losing 15 pounds is no small feat, and the change is definitely evident in the new me.

More importantly, hearing this information doesn’t deter me from preserving with my weight loss; on the contrary, it only motivates me more.
 
It motivates me to continue on my weight loss journey, to continue following the Jumpstart Diet and to continue exercising daily.
 
I’m on a mission to be happy and healthy – I’ve found the happiness through this journey, and now it’s time to finish finding the healthiness.

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Sara Kaner was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California and first fell in love with journalism as a freshman in high school thanks to her wonderful Intro to Journalism teacher. A family move brought her to Fort Myers, Florida the summer after her freshman year of high school, but she continued to pursue an interest in journalism. She is in her second year at the University of Florida and is pursuing a dual degree in Public Relations and Psychology. She is heavily involved on the UF campus and dedicates most of her time to her various organizations and to her friends. She loves people, magazines, sports and social media, and she hopes to combine all three in her job someday. For now, she aspires to attend Law School and specialize in Media Law. She secretly aspires to be Chelsea Handler, but she's happy being herself for the moment, just as long as she can lose the freshman 15 this semester.