Be you. (sorry for getting a little personal)

I spent a lot of my life growing up (even through some of college) being unhappy about myself...

Too fat.Too short.Not athletic.Ugly Hair.Ugly Skin.Annoying voice.Not pretty. ect....

The summer of 2006 I started my journey with the intention of becoming that person I thought people wanted me to be.  To say that I worked hard at it is an understatement.  For two years of my life I became obsessed with how I looked.  I lost 60 lbs, I looked good, I felt healthy, and people gave me so many complements.  But it never seemed to be good enough.

When the two years were up and I wasn't changing anymore, I got a little discouraged.  Over a period of a few months, some specific things happened to me that made me realize that my journey I started two years prior really helped me with the exact opposite of what the journey's intentions were.  It helped me to realize that I shouldn't care what people think about the way I act or the way I look at all and that I shouldn't want to change who I am for anyone but myself.  I was trying to change who I was because that is what the world told me I should be doing...and I was miserable while doing it.  I wasn't spending time doing the things that I loved or focusing on the people around me, because I was too caught up with myself and the way I looked. I knew it was time for a turn around.

To make a longer, even more boring story short...

I DON'T CARE ANY MORE!!

I know that I've slacked a lot over the last  year and a half with what I've learned about being healthy and keeping my body healthy.  But the good thing is that now when I feel bad about not working out or eating something that isn't the healthiest,  I feel bad only because I feel lazy and gross... not because I'm afraid of what people will think of me or being afraid that I don't fit the "mold" of what a girl my age is supposed to look like or the world's thought of "remember, boys only like skinny girls." I really thought crap like that.  Totally not a Jenn thing to say, right? All of those things were ridiculous and they don't EVEN cross my mind anymore. In fact, my views about stuff like that and my priorities couldn't be more opposite of what they used to be.  Sure, I'd like to lose like a hundred million pounds every once and a while(haha) but not for any of the reasons that I used too.. And that is probably one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. no joke.

I'm not saying that I don't get discouraged sometimes.  I'm human.  But the things I've figured out about myself over the last few years are incredible and I don't take back any of the things that I went through to get to this point because I know who I am and I wouldn't want to be anybody else. (Excuse what I just realized is a cheesy Selena Gomez line. Brava Selena.)

I'm Happy.

The point of my "kind of deep because I've never written it down confession," is that we can always work on the things we need to change to keep our bodies healthy (in a healthy way) and we can work on becoming better in whatever areas we want to become better at, that's a good thing to do! But we don't need to do it for anyone else or for any reasons besides the fact that we want too for ourselves.

please, please, PLEASE: Figure out who you are. Be consistent. Be honest about it. Be Confident. And most importantly, be happy! I promise that the people who matter are going to love you more for being yourself.

As one of my friends always says:
"Be who you are and love it."
really...people are going to judge you anyways.