#i2amru (I, Too, Am Reinhardt) Volume 1 Number 1 | Page 32

By Ally Hurd
In just three years, I had gained a
massive 55 pounds. This much weight
didn’t look good on me, and I finally
realized that my parents had been
right when they told me I was becoming overweight. That was the day
it completely hit me that I needed to
make a drastic change in the way I
looked.
The summer of my sophomore year,
I had weighed approximately 130
pounds and was tall and slender, but
then I met my high school sweetheart
Ryan, and that is when the weight
gaining all started. Constant date
nights to my favorite restaurants, special boxes of chocolates, and his kind
words of “Ally, you are so beautiful,
no matter what” are what loaded on
the pounds.

It was a Tuesday, two days after Valentine’s Day
of my senior year, when I woke up, looked in the
mirror, and basically bawled my eyes out
because I finally saw that my body image and happiness were not where
they used to be. For starters, I did what every human being hates doing
and stepped on the scale, and to my surprise, it read the numbers “185.”
Right then and there, I am pretty sure I had a mini heart attack, and I was
ready to be sick at the sight of those three horrifying digits put together.

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In the beginning of our relationship,
everything was so perfect that we just
couldn’t get enough of each other.
We went on dates to the movies, ate
out all the time, attended high school
parties, traveled together, spent time
with our families, and even bought a
dog towards the middle of our relationship. As our relationship moved
on, we got so comfortable with each
other that it was like we had always
been together. At the same time, we
got so used to being with each other
all the time that I didn’t realize that I
was comfortable but not truly happy.

Ryan basically treated
me as a princess, but
everything good does
have a downside to it as
well. We went through
our ups and downs and
always seemed to get
through them, but then
my senior year started
and I was dealing with
major decisions, including the pressure of
college choices.

Breaking up with Ryan was
not easy! He was heartbroken,
and so was I. However, it was
important to be by myself for
a while and focus on getting
back on track with everything
in my life.
I had to get in tip-top shape if
I even wanted to think about
stepping on the court to play
volleyball my freshman year
at Reinhardt. So that is exactly
what I did.

My parents also began
to notice and comment
that I was gaining a
lot of weight, which
happened very rapidly
throughout my and
Ryan’s relationship.
Everything was building
up on me, and I was no
longer happy.
Once I finally reached
my decision to play
volleyball at Reinhardt
University, two things
needed to happen: first,
I needed to end things
with Ryan, and secondly, I needed to become
healthy again and get
my body back into
shape.

The reality of seeing that
number on the scale definitely
helped motivate me into the
change that needed to happen.
I came up with a plan to totally
transform my body image,
which included daily exercise
and excessively watching and
changing the food I put into
my mouth.

“I had to get in tip-top shape
if I even wanted to think about
stepping on the court to play
volleyball my freshman year at
Reinhardt. So that is exactly
what I did.”

Most people would hire personal trainers to help them lose
weight, but one thing I have
always been and always will
be was determined, and I was
most definitely determined to
get this weight off all by myself.
After all, I was the one who
had gained all that weight, so I
should be the one to take it off.

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