Throughout my life I've been riding the roller coaster of my ever-changing weight. When I was younger I was a bit on the heavy side. The way I felt about this was the same way many women (and perhaps men too) appear to feel about their weight. If I could have only lost a few pounds, I would be perfectly happy and my life would be complete. I mean, this must be true, just go to the supermarket checkout stand and look at the magazines. It's pretty obvious that weight loss is the secret to ultimate happiness.
I lost a bunch of weight when I was fourteen (good old Adderall) and I learned that this was untrue. I was extremely thin, and sure I felt good about being thin, but I think most of it was knowing that I had something that so many people wanted: a skinny body. But I still wasn't happy with my body. I didn't want to be a stick, I wanted to have shape. I wanted a more muscular body, but I couldn't bring myself to get around to going to the gym regularly.
The weight slowly came back throughout high school, then I gained exactly 15 pounds my freshman year of college, which led to a series of attempts to lose weight. By this time I did have the discipline to work out regularly. I was moderately successful at losing weight, but not keeping it off. At one point, after I had worked hard losing 20 pounds, they changed my meds and I gained 50 pounds. But I can always lose weight when I really want to.
Last time I lost weight, it was because of a combination of running six miles everyday and abusing cough syrup. I don't recommend drinking cough syrup as a way of losing weight because the weight doesn't stay off. I got down to 130 pounds on my 5 foot 7 frame, which is actually pretty skinny. Seriously, they talk about skinny women weighing like 105 pounds. They must be extremely short, because I was 130 and I didn't need to lose another pound.
Then the weight came back. Which brings me to my point. Right now I weight about 175 pounds, which is roughly 20 pounds overweight. And I find that I don't give a fuck. Well, honestly I would lose weight if I could and it was easy, but I'm more concerned with weight training. Because I've found that I feel better about myself feeling slightly heavy but strong than I do feeling skinny and weak. Because when you are strong physically, it makes you feel like a strong, powerful person. I feel more confident, and I walk with more confidence.
And I find it odd that there are a lot of women who fear weight training because they don't want to look manly. Honestly, I don't think there is any amount of muscle that a woman can realistically build without the use of steroids that would make her look bad. It brings to mind Britney Spears. I don't know what she looks like right now, but I've seen pictures of her in the past where she was very muscular and looked good, and I would look like that if I could. And even that is unrealistic for most people, because most people don't have a career that requires them to look hot.
In conclusion, you will be happiest if you get your self-confidence from some place other than your physical appearance.
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