Day 4: Making Peace with your Weight

From November 4th-13th my blog is hosting the experiences of 10 different women through the BYU Women's Services and Resources Recapturing Beauty campaign. Go here or here to read more about the 10-day challenge.

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Day 4 is written by my roommate Brittney Frehner! Brittney was in my ward freshman year and is now one of my roommates. Brittney is from Draper, UT, and a junior at BYU studying human development. She's our resident Colombian, and she keeps us all entertained by being the funniest human we know, singing in the shower, and saying everything in different accents. 

So… body weight. It is or has been an issue, probably for everybody regardless of size and regardless of whether you’re conscious about it or not. Today’s challenge was great for me because I have never been content with my weight. Growing up, through my early teenage years especially, I was just a little bit on the chunkier side. I personally never thought about my weight until other people would bring it up. One person started to call me names like “hippo” and I would be told by adults that I needed to lose weight if I wanted boys to like me or if I wanted to be pretty when I got older. Coming from adults, these comments really dug deep inside of me. These comments truly hurt me.

Because of these comments I started comparing myself to those around me; my cousins, my friends, and my classmates. And I did notice that most of the girls my age were pretty thin. But I still kind of never really cared. I didn’t want to look like them. I wanted to be me. I kept thinking that if I could only lose a couple pounds that people would stop comparing me to my thinner cousins and to my friends. So, I told myself that I would start to exercise! (Because that’s what skinny people do, right?)

Yeah, no. That didn’t work. My body was definitely NOT made for running long periods of time or for any extreme activities, aka regular exercise. I would get short of breath and get painful cramps on my sides within minutes!! I loved playing sports, so I would do that with friends, but other than that, I basically gave up on 
 exercising.

As I got older, and grew taller (to a whopping 5 feet, 4.5 inches), my body thinned out a little bit. Yes, I could still lose a little weight, but honestly, I am happy the way I am and how my body is. I know what I need to do to take care of myself and more importantly I know who I am and I love me. I don’t want to be like anybody else, I want to be me. Who cares what other people think or say, it is not their place to judge. As for men, I want to find someone who loves me for me, all 155 pounds and all. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and that no matter what comes my way, whether it be 10 more pounds or 10 attractive men, I will love it regardless of what others think.

My advice to all the females in the world: You are unique. You need to know and own your beauty. Do not waste a single minute wishing you were anything different than what you are. You were made to be you. Love your body. Love your uniqueness. Love YOU.  Love your beauty!

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Tomorrow's Challenge: Making Peace with Exercise

We want to hear about your experiences as well!
Tweet or Instagram with the hashtag #RecapturingBeauty about your journey over the next 10 days! You can follow @wsrbyu on Instagram and @byuwsr on Twitter, or me at @kylieinthesky on both. Or leave a comment on this blog post!

If you're also blogging about the Body Image Challenge, we want to see it! Add your post below and link back to this one so we can all share this experience together!