Being a skinny gal all my life, I’ve dealt with with some very interesting body issues. From the realization that I had boobs in 7th grade to being the same weight since I was 16, being skinny doesn’t exempt me from feeling vulnerable or crappy about myself from time to time .
Yes you read that right, I’m 23 and I’ve been a steady 126 pounds since I got my drivers license. Up until my Senior year of college soccer kept me at a muscular 126. Sure being 11% body fat is great and all but I never felt good about my body. I never was confident in my body which leads me to question, how skinny do you have to be to be confident in yourself?!
Rhetorical because there is no magic number, no waist size, no fat percentage low enough to make one confident in themselves. Confidence has to come from within.
This lesson I learned after I realized my soccer body was no more. I went through the weird diets, the endless hours of cardio whatever to make me look like the girls in the magazine. Though my weight never increased my muscle mass decreased dramatically which made me look a lot bigger then I was use too.
After a few months of this cycle of binging and working out, I tried a different approach. I saw tons of girls who lifted weights on Instagram and decided why not try it. Through my varies workout programs in the past, lifting weights wasn’t foreign to me like some others.
After trying it and realizing how utterly weak I was, I got motivated to do it more. I wanted to lift heavy. I wanted muscles. Heck I wanted to do a pull up! I knew none of those things were achievable unless I put on muscle, which meant putting on weight.
At my lowest weight since adulthood I was 122 pounds. I’ve been working out consistently for about a year and happy to say I fluctuate between 128-131 depending on the day. And I am ecstatic! The extra muscle I’ve put on has made my confidence sore through the roof. Not to mention my body fat has gone down dramatically. Also lets me throw around some pretty heavy stuff!
Its weird saying body weight rising makes my confidence rise with it,but it does. Not everyone will feel the way I do, which leads me to my next point. We all have different things that make us feel good about ourselves, you just have to find the thing that makes you feel good about yourself! Stop doing what everyone else is doing. Stop comparing yourself to others. You have no idea how they feel about themselves or what they do to achieve the body they have. The skinny girls on magazines may starve themselves and hate their bodies, you just never know. skinniness doesn’t equal happiness.
Explore different avenues to find the thing that makes you feel good.Once you find your confidence boosting niche, stick to it, and thrive in it.
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