6/12/2020
I just wanted to write something about me and my journey of running, gaining weight, and trying to lose weight. (Beware! It’s long lol)
Ever since I was a kid I have been overweight/obese. Even though I played soccer from age 3 to 17 and I did cross country for a year, I was still quite obese.
When I in elementary school, I remember thinking I was an amazing runner. I was fast but I couldn’t run for that long lol I remember surprising everyone by how fast I was because I really was just the fat kid growing up. Then I stopped running and I focused on soccer more as I grew.
When I got to middle school, I decided to join cross country and I really loved it. I was definitely the slowest and I remember one time they sent my teammates out to look for me because I was taking so long. That was pretty embarrassing but I kept with it. I only remember going to like 2 races and I’m not sure why it was only 2... I also tried out the Insanity workout videos which were really intense but I was starting to lose weight. I did it for a month and then I just lost interest.
When I got to high school, I was doing great. I walked 30 minutes to and from school everyday, every Monday my PE class had a mile run test, every Friday we had a 25 minute run, and I had soccer practice after school almost everyday. I was really losing weight and I got my mile time under 10 minutes!
After not even a full year in high school I moved out of state and everything was completely flipped. School was only a 10 minute walk, the PE classes were only small game with hardly any real activity, and I still had soccer practice but my heart wasn’t in it anymore.
I also started having a terrible diet. My brother would buy chips every day for me and my sister and we all ballooned up. I have gained almost 100 lbs in 6 years! I did soccer all 4 years of high school but I did not have a good time. I also tried losing weight tons of times and asked for weight for my birthday and I was doing pretty well but then I just stopped for some reason. I have never lost a significant amount of weight in all of the times I’ve tried. Maybe the max was 10 lbs.
My senior year of high school I did soccer for the last time and then I joined a running club through my school where we train for 4 months to run a half marathon. I did it with 2 of my friends and I took it a bit more seriously than them and I was really loving it. I ended up being the only one of my friends to actually run the half marathon and I was so happy.
Running that half marathon made me feel like even though I’ve always been the fat friend, I can still be active. Sometimes I feel like I run out of spite. I think that people think I can’t run and I never run because of how fat I am but every single time I get outside to run I prove them wrong. Even if I’m not consistently losing weight by running I can still do it and no, my joints don’t hurt and they haven’t hurt in the past couple of years of me running.
As a fat person, I feel powerful when I run. I feel like I am doing something against all odds and I feel like I needed someone like me growing up so I hope I can be that person for others.
