So you know those baby bellies that all little kids have, they usally go away around 5 or 6, I still had mine at 7. My mom was the tinest woman I knew. She weight about 105 pounds and I would always overhear her talking about something called calories and your weight and eating little amounts of food. I also had two older sisters who were both teenagers. I would always watch them while they would look in the mirror at their stomachs and legs. I would see one of them constantly sneek into my moms bathroom to check her weight around 5 times daily. At the age of 8 I was portioning out my food, I would make sure I packed only healthy foods in my lunchbox and I added up my calories. I didn't really know what counting calories was and how many you were supposted to have but I liked being like my mom. My mom and my sisters went to the gym a lot and I always wanted to go in and workout with them but I wasn't old enough. My family was the type that was very close, I had two older brothers too and they always picked on me about things, not knowing I was already self conscious. My mom started to realize what was going on with me after she caught me checking my weight when I was about 9. She and I had a talk and she got it through my head that I was just a little kid and that I wasn't even close to being fat, I was actually almost underweight. So I backed off of the food control thing and eventually I totally forgot about it. When I was 13 it started back up again. I was was about to start 8th grade and I didn't like what I saw in the mirror. I weighed myself, something I hadn't done since I was 9. I weighed 129 pounds. I didn't like anything about me and I was starting to realize that my legs were a lot bigger than they used to be. This is when I started starving myself and working out exsessivlely. The thought of what I was going to eat next was a constant thing in my head, I knew I couldn't completly stop eating, but I wanted to eat something with at most 150 calories. At this point I was eating around 500 calories a day. I still wasn't loosing weight though. Nothing seemed to be working. I was on diets on and off for about 3 years, counting my calories, skipping meals, working out, anything i could do to just loose some extra pounds. I hated the way I looked, I hated my genes that made me short with a tiny waist, wide hips, big thighs and a big butt. I wanted to be tall with thin legs. My weight would go up and then down and then up and then down. By the time I was 17 and I went to the doctors for a check-up I was 130 pounds and just tired of worrying. The doctors told me that I had developed anemia most likely from malnutrition. This was a hige wake-up call for me. I realized that I can't beat my genetics, I can't deprive my body from the things that it needs to work. I had spent SO MUCH time focusing on what I was eating and how I looked that I missed out on so many things and for what? To have the body that I thought everyone else wanted me to have? All I got out of it was having to take extra iron pills the rest of my life, a bad self image, and a huge collection of weight loss pills in my dresser under my socks. Now I am 18 and I'm happy with myself. I can't say that there aren't days where I tell myself no to certain things but I came to a conclusion that there is a fine line between wanting to be healthy and look healthy and starving yourself just so you look 'good' to others. Being able to just come on here and just tell my story and just admit that I put myself through all this pain is really hard but i'm glad I did it. Those of you out there, esspecially teenagers, who are struggling with their body and you are starving yourself. Ask yourself why? What are you really trying to accomplish? Are you trying to be skinny? What does being skinny even mean? Who gets to set the standards for what skinny looks like? Is it celebrities? The ones who go and get surguries that cost thousands of dollars? How is that fair? We all need to learn to love ourselves and just embrace who we are. I'm not saying its easy because lord knows its not, but its time this society comes to an end with body shaming. We are all different and yet we are all beautiful. ILY guys, don't give up. ❤
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