Me by Cortney

I struggled with writing the post but after reading Zayle's post I wanted to tell my story. First, I would like to say that I do not know what I feels like to be more than 10-15 pounds overweight but being 5'1" 5 pounds looks like 15!!! I was a very active child I played soccer, basketball, gymnastics, jazz, tap, and ballet, I was always the shortest person. I remember in the 3rd grade a friend suggested that I start dieting, and telling me to never go back for seconds and to always pick the smallest cupcake. This is where it all began, at 8 years old I started worrying about my weight. In high school I did powerlifting and track, even though I was very active I can still remember thinking I was fat, and since I thought this way, others would use it against me and call me fat. My freshman year I watched a documentary on E! about the Barbie Twins, this is where I learned how to skip meals and to abuse laxatives. By sophomore year I was eating less than 750 calories a day, going to track practice after school, and powerlifting before school, as well as working out during athletics. For a period in high school I was eating no carbs at all and skipping lunch everyday, soon people stopped focusing on my weight, and started asking if I had an eating disorder because I wasn't eating lunch. These questions and rumors were not any better than being called fat. By junior year I was using a box of laxatives a week and still eating eating less than 750 calories. These unhealthy habits put me in the hospital the first work out of senior year, I woke up at 3am with the worst headache of my life and tunnel vision. I was severely dehydrated and had suffered a minor heat stroke, even this didn't change my ways and at my last powerlifting meet I weighed 118, now that seems like a normal weight for someone my height but with how much I was lifting it was very unhealthy. This just motivated me to try harder to get under 110, by unhealthy means. Sometimes I would look at myself and didn't see a "fat" girl like people were saying I was. After high school I taught spin, legs and abs, and step classes. At one point I was teaching 7 one hours classes per week and would pick up any class I could which would put me at 10 classes per week sometimes. When I wasn't teaching classes and working out, I was sleeping because I have no energy. I knew something had to change but I didn't know how to change because I had been stuck in my unhealthy habits for so long. Today I still see myself as a short, stubby, fat girl, it took me a long time to realize that even though I'm short I have a larger frame then other girls my height, I have a booty and hips, my bust and weight measurement are the same and are 10 inches less than my waist, which might seem idea for some people wanting an hourglass figure but I still struggle with falling into old habits everyday. I have learned to listen to my body, and although I'll probably always be weight conscience I have learned to go about this in healthier ways. 

Me at 17

Me at 18

Me at 16.

Now