Impending doom accompanied every birthday of my childhood. A birthday meant an annual checkup; an annual checkup meant a visit to the pediatrician. I never minded shots, I wasn’t disturbed by blood, and the poking and prodding protocols didn’t bother me. But for every year that I can remember, the cold, black scale sent a paralyzing sense of shame through me, upsetting my otherwise undisturbed youthfulness by forcing a harsh confrontation with the reality of my physical self. Until these inevitable moments, I could live in denial of and without concern for my body’s condition because it never caused me any significant hardship. I had great friends and I flirted with cute boys. I was a popular class clown and the life of every party. I had straight As, I played first base, and I danced on stage. Because I never needed to confront the issue otherwise, I avoided scales until they were literally forced below my feet. But year after year during the last week of March, or if I was lucky enough to postpone it into the early weeks of April, I had no choice but to acknowledge the problematic situation that was my weight chart, a straight…

Get on the treadmill. Slam on the big, red, “STOP” button as soon as you’ve run the fastest mile of which you are physically capable. Are you sweating yet? Take no break; hop immediately from the treadmill to the pull-up bar and fight through 100 repetitions. You heard me. Do you feel the burn? When you’re done, get on the floor and complete 200 pushups – knees on the ground when necessary. I’m not exaggerating. Can you push through the pain? Once those are finished, peel yourself upright and begin the bodyweight squat countdown from 300. That’s not an extra zero. KEEP GOING. DO NOT STOP. Get up and jump back on the treadmill. Force one leg in front of the other until you’ve pounded out another mile. Are you still breathing? If you are, congratulations. You’ve just completed one day of CrossFit. According to Chris Arcure, the owner of Wolverine Strength and Conditioning, a CrossFit affiliate gym in Ann Arbor, Michigan, part of the program’s beauty is that “anyone can do it.” He’s addressing my surprise at the class’s diversity. In front of me, an overweight middle-aged woman relies on her knees resting upon the soft ground to complete…

“Just make sure you actually sign up,” my friend warned. “I almost missed the registration date and I wouldn’t have even been able to go through recruitment.” “And your life would have been SO drastically different…” I made sure to saturate each word with sarcasm. “But it would.” She responded firmly, employing curtness to prove her point whether she made that decision consciously or not. I instinctively rolled my eyes and cracked a condescending grin, but she wasn’t kidding around. Becoming a member of Greek Life was some seriously life-altering shit and it was my naivety and inexperience that prevented me from understanding that. So I made sure to sign up. I went through the process. I stood in line and I talked to girls and my rush story ended happily ever after. I genuinely believed that would always be the whole story. *** I decided to give recruitment a chance based off the fact that it seemed like most of the normal girls at orientation were doing it and I had heard some success stories from older friends at other schools. I had no doubt that it would work out in my favor, but if I was wrong I…

It’s as if a higher power or worldwide ruling body once passed a law of obesity, simply stating that if you are overweight you are supposed to be emotionally affected by it. The heavier you are, the more miserable you ought to be. If you weigh more, you struggle more. If you don’t like what you see on the scale or in the mirror, you don’t like what you see in the world. I was one of the big kids to which none of this applied. I didn’t need to be thin to be happy. I didn’t need to love my reflection to love the person it reflected. I don’t know how it came easy to me and seemingly no one else, but living the skinny girl life allowed me to ignore the fat suit in which I lived it. I successfully denied my obesity because it never caused me any significant hardship. When elected to be the captain of my softball team and chosen for every dance group I auditioned for, it was easy to ignore that I was twice the size of everyone with which I shared the field and the stage. My body didn’t stop me from…