On July 20, 2010 I left my home in Florida heading towards San Antonio, TX to attend Basic Training for the United States Air Force. I left in size 2 jeans at 107lbs, below the Air Force minimum weight. I was skinny. I was skinny because I lived in Florida where the only outfit that really mattered was your bathing suit. And I was skinny because I starved myself. Not as drastically as other girls I’ve known, but maybe a meal a day and a snack when I was feeling exceptionally dizzy. It was never about being healthy though, it was just about being little. I loved the compliment of “you’re so tiny!” That was always my favorite. But the Air Force wasn’t too keen on letting me be that small. After the first stressful week of basic where you don’t even have the time to eat what food you did pick up in the chow hall, my T.I. sent me to medical for “looking sickly”. When I got to the hospital I was only 97lbs. The nurse told me that in order to graduate basic I needed to be at the very least 115lbs. No exceptions. If by the seventh week of training I hadn’t made that weight they were going to recycle me into a newer flight and I would not leave until I weighed enough. It was very hard to change my mindset from “Food is the Enemy” to “I HAVE to eat”. I wanted to get out of there. I didn’t want to stay any longer than I had too. And very successfully, on my seventh week follow up appointment I was a much healthier 127lbs. Although I was happy to leave the next few months were hard. None of my civilian clothes fit anymore. My jeans wouldn’t come up over my thighs, my shorts were too little. I went from a Size 2, to a Size 7. It took some getting used to, and a couple hundred dollars worth of a new wardrobe, for me to feel pretty again. I realized that beauty is not just about being the smallest. I have curves! I have hips, I have thighs. I have a great man who does nothing but tell me how sexy he thinks I look. It took some getting used to but I’m never going back to being that little ever again.
BE BRAVE! JOIN THE REVOLUTION!
Submitted by: riddleberger.tumblr.com
