getting skinny did not solve all my problems

growing up, i really considered myself to be a medium girl. i was never skinny, but i wasn’t necessarily overweight, at least in my eyes. i was never healthy, but it’s not like i was unhealthy.

one thing is for sure, i was always, always uncomfortable in my body. for a long time, i had a really complicated, toxic relationship with fitness. In high school, i was pretty active. i ate whatever i wanted, but i balanced it out with my activity level. i didn’t really “work out,” but i was in marching band, i played softball for a while, and i did dance, so those things kind of balanced out my diet. i started going to the gym in high school, but i had no idea what i was doing.

in college, my mental health really got the best of me and my eating habits declined tremendously. i returned from college during covid thinner than i had been in so long, but not in a good way. I was weak, had low energy all the time, and my mental health went to shit. i was one of the rare few that actually benefitted extremely from quarantine, and the 2020 period of isolation. i was able to rise. but my relationship to my body never changed, even though i was thinner.

i was still working out, very casually, but i still didn’t know what i was doing.

in 2021, hayden and i stayed in texas for about a month with my aunt. during that time, i really tried to prioritize my fitness, particularly because i wasn’t working. If you’ve ever heard the name ‘Chloe Ting’ before, i really truly apologize on behalf of the fitness community. i worshipped chloe ting’s ‘2 week shredded abs’ workouts, and i did so many of her high intensity interval training (hiit) challenges. but i hated every second. for that reason, i convinced myself i hated working out. but i still did it every day… because i wanted to be skinny. i had gained some weight and i wanted to get back to how i was.

long story short, that never happened. i was convinced i hated the gym because i hated the only thing i actually knew how to do– so of course, i fell off again. after the most inconsistent few months going on and off with the gym, we jump to 2022 when i lived in chicago. i gained a lot of weight in chicago. i stopped going to the gym, mainly because my free time had dramatically dwindled, and my diet was so unhealthy. i was a vegan by this point but i was basically doordashing vegan fast food for every meal.

psa: just because it’s vegan doesn’t make it healthy

I was up to 190 pounds at this point. i moved back home in 2023, and by the end of the year i was about 196, which was the heaviest i had ever been. i cared, of course i cared, but i didn’t know what to do about it. i couldn’t let myself fall down my path of disordered eating again, but i was so desperate to just be comfortable. i hated every outfit i wore, my confidence went to shit, i cried in the gym, i compared myself to everybody, i didn’t even want my boyfriend of 3 years to look at me naked because i was constantly embarrassed. on top of it all, my coffee shop job was so extremely toxic and mentally draining that it made me constantly miserable and mean, which didn’t help my confidence at all.

now just as a side note, i do not think, at all, that being 196 pounds is something to be embarrassed about. however, i think if anyone (especially us females) gained so much weight that they were the heaviest they had ever been in their lives, we would all have some type of dysmorphia about it, at least to an extent.

i made a choice to turn my life around and got to work. Step one was to quit my job that made me miserable. once i did, everything changed. i started prioritizing the gym, doing research on strength training and how to actually meet the goals i set. i found a way to stay consistent in the gym by finding workouts that i love. i made my eating habits intentional (more on this in the future). i put myself first.

i used to go to the gym to get skinny, and now i go to the gym because i love it. i crave it, it’s such a stress reliever for me, and it makes me feel good. in november of last year, i set a goal weight and timeline for myself of 150 pounds by my birthday, september 11th. friends, on my birthday earlier this year, i was officially below that goal weight. this is officially the thinnest i’ve been in a while, and i’m so proud of myself because it’s also the strongest i’ve ever been. i lift heavy weights, i can run for 20 minutes without stopping (probably longer now!), i’m more consistent than i’ve ever been, and my diet is better than ever.

alas, when i was overweight, i convinced myself that being skinny would solve all my problems. i promised that if i got skinny i would never complain about anything, my confidence would never dwindle, and i would never ever take it for granted. now that i’m skinny i can confirm, literally none of that is true. although, i will say, it did help my confidence so much. i’ve never been more comfortable in my body than i am now. i feel so good going out in public, my sense of style has totally changed, clothes feel so flattering on me, and my confidence has increased drastically. i still complain– have you ever had to change your whole entire wardrobe? seriously, i only have one good pair of jeans now because all my other ones are too big. my confidence still dwindles all the time– when i get acne, when my hair is super frizzy, when i’m not having my best gym day.

the difference in my body now vs. my body when i was in college is the work behind it. in college, my anxiety made me stop eating. i worked out to avoid social situations and to give myself something to do so i wouldn’t go crazy. i got thin because i wasn’t taking care of myself. this time around, i got thin because i worked so hard for a healthy version of myself– one that i finally felt comfortable and confident in. tirelessly, i went to the gym, i pushed my physical limits when it came to lifting weights, i trained myself on cardio, i fueled my body properly to give me energy to train, i stayed consistent even when i didn’t want to, even when it was so hard. the difference in then vs. now is the motive. this time around, i didn’t work hard to be skinny, i worked hard to be my best self.

this post is a letter to my past self that no, getting skinny did not solve all of my problems. but it’s also an ode to my journey and progress and dedication. i’m so proud of myself, not because i’m thin now, but because i have always, always been uncomfortable in my body– i wanted to change it, and i did. i finally did.

past me, you did it.

if i could go back, i might choose to do a few things differently. i would definitely put less pressure on myself. i never understood my constant craving to change my body, but i wish i could go back and ease my mind a little. i wish i could go back to freshman year of college and sit in on a session with 19 year old me and my then-therapist, keith. i would have spent less time in the gym and more time with my friends. i would go back and never go to the gym with the intention of being skinny. i would go back and go to the gym with the intention of loving it and being the best version of myself. i would go back and focus on finding workouts that i love doing and i would stop myself from wasting so much mental energy on ones that i hated.

this is also a letter to whomever might be reading this, and might be struggling. you don’t have to be overweight to struggle with body image. it’s an unfortunate epidemic within our society thanks to so many culprits. i want to speak directly to you when i say: consistently putting myself first was the best thing i ever did. do that. in whatever way that looks like to you. it doesn’t have to be going to the gym or changing your diet, but putting myself first changed my life.

also i wanted to mention, for the past (almost!) four years, hayden has loved me so fiercely and fervently, no matter what i think of myself. when i was at my thinnest and my heaviest, he always made me feel so beautiful and sexy and loved. he encouraged me every day and still does. he pushed me when i didn’t want to push myself anymore. even though i accomplished this by myself, i did not do it alone. thank you so much to my love, my hayden, for loving me. no matter what.

thank you to my friends. my inner circle. my support. when i can’t make it out for drinks because it’s quads & shoulders day, you have never made me feel like shit for it. you support me and encourage me endlessly, too, but you also never make me feel left out. and that is so important for me.

— mal