The first year of college is over and I have to say, as happy as I am being home I also miss all the craziness surrounding college. One thing I will say is that from day one of getting ready for college, all I was worried about was the freshman fifteen. That god awful weight that a lot of people are afraid of.
So the semester ends and I'm packing up my stuff. Just as I am cleaning out my room, I walk by my mirror (that is so far broken that it should've been thrown out a long time ago), and I see that I don't look as small as the photographs that I had just packed away. I start to panic. Growing up I struggled to keep a healthy weight. My doctors told me to gain more weight because I was so far behind on the growth chart. For some reason, I could never have weight stick. I tried so many different weight gaining shakes that at one point I just stopped because I never could gain the weight the doctors wanted me to and it was absolutely miserable. Going off the college I was just a little over 100 pounds which to me already seemed like a lot of weight.
Once the panic sets in, I stopped what I was doing to inspect the image before me. I look at the fullness of my face, the little bit of stretchy skin I pulled at by ribs and then of course the jiggle on my legs. I started to tear up because this was an image that I never wanted to see. It was so awful. Being so small for so long made me think that it was completely normal to be super skinny while seeing my bones stick clear out. That right there was the problem.
I barely recognized the problem in front of me. I was obsessed with keeping this tiny figure that I didn't realize what I was doing to myself. I wasn't properly eating nor was I taking care of myself because I was so blinded by this image I had known and always saw in magazines. Despite what the doctors told me, I was determined to be skinny beyond what was actually healthy. Looking back on that day I saw myself in the mirror, I think it was a really big moment for me. I had gained weight that I was actually afraid of gaining. Now, I'm thankful for it. I'm at a healthy weight where I don't see all of my ribs and have my entire spine stick out. I'm happy that I have weight on my stomach because I can see that I'm eating. Sure I'm still a college kid that enjoys fries way too much but I'm also a college kid that eats fuller meals at dinner now and constantly has a water bottle in her hand. In a way, the freshman fifteen helped me gained the weight I so desperately needed to. And I'm completely thankful for it.
So those of you so are scared of going off to college and gaining those fifteen pounds, don't be. It's okay to gain those extra pounds. Sometimes people don't even gain the full fifteen. Believe me, it's not the end of the world to be a little healthier.
