My Story
I have been a gymnast all my life and for most of those years, I disliked my body. Let me put it like this, I’ve been on a gymnastics team for ten years now and I’ve disliked my body for eight of those years. You might ask me why? Let me explain. When I was six years old, I started on the USAIGC gymnastics team and not the USAG team. I always wanted to be on the USAG team, but I had to prove myself to the coaches. So, for three years that’s what I did. I was a very good gymnast for my age, so I wanted to try out for the USAG team when I was nine. Well, when I did, they told me I did not have the right body type to be a "good" gymnast. Let me put it in other words, I WAS good enough at gymnastics, but my BODY was not the body that they were looking for. Why you might ask, well if you look up what gymnasts look like, they all look short and skinny and muscular but that was not me back then. I was tall for my age and I had extra weight on me.
Did I give up? No, never! I went back to the gym and got better. Then I tried out at a different gym and I got on the USAG team. Now I have been on the USAG team for six years and I would’ve never thought that I could make it here. That showed me that it was always about confidence and not about what size you were.
I still sometimes think about trying to be thinner but then I remember what I went through and that I am living proof that it’s okay to not look like everyone else. No one is supposed to look the same, but I could never wrap my head around that until I made it to my dream.
Now you might look at me and say, you are thin and you do look like a gymnast well yes now I do but let me tell you why. I do gymnastics almost twenty hours a week and because of all that exercise I did lose some weight, but the real reason why is because two years ago I started to suffer from very bad stomach problems.
My stomach always hurts and sadly doctors can’t diagnose the issue. A year and a half ago they told me to try being lactose-free, gluten-free, and acid-free because of this I lost over thirty pounds. Now a lot of people didn’t realize that I was losing all this weight because of my changed eating habits, they thought I did it because I wanted to. No, I loved my body back then, and now, I loved it either way. People tell me now that “you look so much better ” or “you’re such a better gymnast because you lost weight”. Let me just say that’s not true. Gymnastics is all about being confident and I wish I could prove that if I never lost this weight I would be the same gymnast I am now. But I can’t. This is why I am telling you the real and full story so you can relate to me. I want you to understand that being thinner or prettier doesn’t make things easier, it’s all about how you see yourself. I know you are beautiful, but I just need to prove that to you!