feel more comfortable. He said, “Look, this is
me.” He used to weigh three hundred pounds. I
felt like I was around other people who under-
stood my struggles.
Now Jesse, Chris, and I support each other.
We’re like the ragtag band of misfits. Jesse took
a video of my first workout, and now, whenever
I think about how far I have to go, I can look
back and see how far I’ve come. At first I had
to hobble down the studio stairs. I couldn’t do
certain poses because they hurt my knees. I
couldn’t get up off the floor without help.
Change is scary because you don’t know what
you’re going to find. Looking at myself in a mir-
ror and saying, “I love my body the way I am now,
not for the way I should be”—that’s also hard,
because we live in a society where we’re told we
have to look a certain way to be lovable.
For me, it’s a constant, daily effort. When I see
somebody skinnier than me, or more beautiful,
I say, “That’s OK. She’s on her own path. I’m
lovable because I’m here.”
As I look at myself doing these poses, I am
proud.