My personal journey with losing weight

“Wow,” the doctor said, “you’ve lost 15 pounds.”

This sentence was among many sentences uttered at my sixteen year check up. It had come to my attention that my weight had gone down to my weight from when I was twelve. You might be asking, was it from working out? Dieting? Natural remedies? No, it wasn’t, sadly. I had gotten to that body size and weight from starving myself.

I noticed that in January, I just did not feel like eating. It felt like a chore more than a joy. I blamed this on schoolwork and the school’s time for lunch, as it felt like a late breakfast. From this, I was down to eating two meals a day. This truly did not affect my school and sports performance, so I decided to continue this awful habit for a few more months.

Whenever my girl group sat at lunch, only one friend noticed that I did not eat anything. Whenever we had those uncomfortable yet unavoidable talks about calories and our weight, I brought up the fact that I lost fifteen pounds from doing nothing and they thought I was “lucky”.

No, I was not lucky, and in a way I question my friendship with them for not seeing anything happening to me.

From January to March, I hated eating anything. It literally felt like a burden on my body. I saw it then as a plus: my waist was snatched, my weight was low, and I didn’t have to spend extra time eating.

Once quarantine started, I felt more depression and anxiety than I ever could have imagined. This was due to cancellations of activities, no social contact, and everything else that a fifteen (almost sixteen) year old would experience. I locked myself in my room, did homework, and went on my phone. I was so upset. Food physically could not go into my body.

However, one thing in particular is completely thrown off from this disgusting eating habit. My menstruation cycle, or period, was just wrong. I got it every two weeks for about four months and it was the worst thing in the world.

My mom at that sixteen year checkup was horrified, as she did not really notice anything. I think for her, she did not see a sudden change, since it was was more gradual and therefore did not stand out to her. On Memorial Day, we went to see my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins; when my grandmother saw me, she told my mom how much weight I had lost. This was not the usual grandparent intuition which led to stuffing me ice cream. It was real, and it was a problem to her.
My mom finally realized my new body and just how much it had changed. She kept me on an eating schedule and practically forced me to eat until it felt natural again.

Now, I choose to work on my body solely through exercise. I am able to eat again, which relieves me.

I advise you to think about any friends or family members who you have not seen in a while and check up on them. If you see your friend not eating, try to persuade them, it will most likely work.

I wish I had a friend or family member who noticed in the first months so that I wouldn’t fall down this dangerous path. In a way, it is a blessing because now I can help others not do the same thing I did to my body.