The summer of 2019 is definitely not one I will forget. Why? Because that's the summer I finally decided enough was enough and I took back my body.

My whole life, or at least a vast majority of it, I have struggled with being confident in my appearance. It wasn't that I thought I had an ugly face, but that didn't matter to me because I was convinced that my body was ugly.

For that one reason, I thought everything about me was hideous. I was never as skinny as the other girls and never weighed even close to what they did. I've spent probably a decade now of my life comparing myself to other girls.

When I look back at old pictures of me from middle school when it really began to affect me, I think to myself now, "why did I think I was so fat?" and "I would kill to be that size now!".

As time went on and I gained even more weight, these problems only got worse. I constantly told myself I was going to change, I was going to take initiative and stop sitting around, constantly putting myself down.

At this point, I was my own worst enemy. But I never followed through. I let my insecurities take over every aspect of my life. I never wanted to go out and do anything fun because I was always so worried about what I looked like and what other people would think because I was so convinced that people looked at me the way I saw myself.

I absolutely dreaded shopping because nothing ever fit and I was ashamed to buy such big sizes as if it even mattered. I thought it was going to be like this forever.

Then my mom convinced me to do Weight Watchers with her for a summer. She had tried to get me to do it multiple times before, but being the incredibly stubborn person I am, refused to. Eventually, I gave in and said I would do it just to make her happy. However, my stubbornness coming out again, I was convinced that it wasn't going to work for me.

Needless to say, I could not have been more wrong.

After a whole summer of being on Weight Watchers, I lost just over 25 pounds and went from a size 18/20 to a size 16. I can honestly say that this process changed my life. After losing all this weight, I have never felt more confident in my whole life. Are my problems magically fixed? Not one bit. I still struggle with insane insecurities every day.

I still look in the mirror way too much and need constant reassurance that I don't look fat. I'm hesitant about wearing clothes that I didn't use to wear because it's a new feeling for me. And now that I'm in college and I'm still not cooking for myself, due to living in a sorority house, I'm unable to control every single aspect of what I eat.

It drives me insane and it's a huge battle every day to not let my insecurities get the best of me again. But I take things day by day and remind myself of where I was at this point last year, and just how far I've come.