When I was 6 years old, I hit puberty.
Since that age on, I've always suffered from low self-esteem. I grew up with my 2 sisters and 2 female cousins, all four of which were all very skinny. When I was 9 years old, I became very depressed and was even put on medication for a multitude of reasons, one of which was because I hated myself. I started sucking my stomach in to make it look like I was thinner.
When I was 12, I started looking up ways to quickly lose weight.
I was 14 when I started to starve myself. I wanted to be thinner before I started high school. I lost about 20 lbs in two months, but then I started eating like I had before, so I gained all of my weight back to 153 lbs.
When I was 15, I weighed 154 lbs, so I started starving myself again. I didn't just stop eating everything like my last attempt, I just ate in very small portions because I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing.
About a month before I turned 18 (so January 2011, my birthday being in February), I weighed in at 127 lbs. Summed up, things happened, I got very stressed, and started eating like crazy because I just didn't care anymore. The following year, January 2012, I was up to 156 lbs. I had made a New Year's Resolution to weigh 135 lbs by the end of December 2012.
For Mother's Day in May 2012, my family and I got together at a park for the occasion. Towards the end of May, the photos had been posted to Facebook. I looked at the pictures of me and couldn't believe how big I was. I thought about my New Year's Resolution and decided it was time to follow through with it.
On June 4th, 2012, I weighed 158 lbs. I started doing cardio on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, increasing my workouts as I got the hang of it. I cut out almost all junk food, and instead of eating until I was full or stuffed, I ate until I was comfortably full.
On December 3rd, 2012, I had finally reached my goal of 135 lbs!
As of March 2013, I currently weigh in at 123 lbs. And the best part of all of this is that I am healthy. I didn't cheat, I didn't take any shortcuts, I didn't starve myself. I earned it. My self-esteem is unbelievably high, to the point that I wonder if I should be ashamed of being so proud.
