My history of my body, Part 1

I was over 9 pounds when I was born. I was the firstborn to a young mom. She read that a baby is supposed to double in weight at six months and she practically force-fed me to get there. She proudly presented me to the pediatrician, who told her that that was for a baby that weighed more like 7 pounds at birth. I've always wondered if that set the tone for my body.

I wasn't a fat kid. Heavier kids had to buy their clothes in the husky department, and that was never me. But I did always have that little-kid belly and thick, muscular legs. My mom and my sister have long, slender legs, but mine are Campbell legs. They are squat and solid. I always joke that they were made to plow fields. On good days, I tell myself that they are strong. On bad days, I just sigh.

As a kid through preteen, I knew I was pretty average and I didn't think much about my body either way. I wasn't a beauty, I was barely noticed. My sister was the cute one, as these things go. I wanted to be girly, but it wasn't in me. I didn't really care about my clothes or my hair or those sorts of things. To be honest, I had no idea how girls determined what they should be wearing.

When I became a teenager, I started to care about my looks. I actually tried to do my hair. I tried to dress like everyone else. I knew I couldn't compete with the really beautiful girls, but I tried to hold my own. In my memory, I thought I was a bit pudgy. I still had that tummy and I wanted to lose about 10 pounds all the time. I was never 1970s-skinny that was fashionable back then. But when I look at pictures of me at that age, I had a great body. (God, I'd kill to have that body again.) (Spoiler: it won't happen.) I should have learned to accept this body, but, instead, I started a fight with it.

In high school, I was in marching band and doing the running around that teenagers do, which kept me in decent shape. I felt like I maybe should diet, but I didn't have the time or desire. College was more of the same: just the activity of juggling it all kept me in decent shape. That was the good news. The bad news is that I never really learned how to diet or regularly exercise. When my mid-20s hit, my real struggle with weight began.