My mom tells me that when I was born, I was the heaviest newborn in the entire hospital that day. I had rolls on my arms and feet. People called me cute. It was all cool until I was a small baby. I was growing up. I was still chubby. But now people started calling me fat. From chubby to fat. It was pretty fast. My body weight started to become my biggest embarrasment. People gave me the nickname “moti” (fatty in Nepali). I got called “moti” so often that some people forgot my actual name. People used to comment about my body weight every opportunity they got. Whenever I met the people I knew, they’d say, “You gained so much weight”. My relatives used to comment that no one was gonna marry me if I continued gaining weight. Some even said, “You’d be so beautiful if you lost some weight”. Some advice they gave me was really appalling.

I was an introvert and didn’t know how to to handle people’s comments, especially the name calling. I used to feel sad and thought that something was really wrong with me. Then I started becoming my own worst critic. I started to hate my body with a passion. I even argued with my mom saying, “Why did you make me fat”?, when the only thing she’d done for me is cared for me and kept me well-fed. I began thinking I was ugly. My self-steem lowered to the extent where I never wanted to socialize with people. I was ashamed of my body. I even thought that the reason behind my unsuccesful relationships was my body-weight.

I struggled with my eating. I used to binge eat whenever I got stressed. Back then, I had no idea about fitness and healthy eating. When I finished my high school, one of my friends got into fitness and her journey and the result she achieved was incredible. She recommended me a home workout routine posted on YouTube. I became determined to lose weight. From then, I started working out twice a day, every day, 7 days a week. I thought, twice the workout, twice the weight loss. I used to get so tired at the end of the day that I started eating twice the normal amount that I previously ate. I slept every chance I got, since my body was so tired from the workout routine. In the end, the result was the exact opposite of what I had strived for. I had gained 5 more kgs of weight than when I had started working out. I began thinking that it wasn’t my cup of tea.

Two more years passed. The bullying still continued and so did my self-hate. By that time, I had learned that being overweight was unhealthy and that heredity diabetes and blood pressure were real things. I did my research on healthy diets and workouts. I was determined to start my fitness journey once again. But this time, I started with a 7 minute workout instead of the 30 minute workout that I had previously started with two years back. One step at a time, I told myself. I developed the habit of eating healthy foods as much as possible. I started drinking lots of water. I shifted from the 7 minute workout to 15 minutes and then to the 30 minute workout. I worked out 5 times a week, taking two days breaks for my body to heal itself. The process was steady, but life changing. No, I did not start losing weight right then and there. But I started to feel so much better, mentally and physically. I learned so many things about fitness. After nearly two months of hard work, persistence and patience, the results started coming in. My body was changing. I had lost a kilo. I felt a sense of acheivement. I was motivated to be consistent. Now, my fitness became my passion. It was one hell of a journey and I was (still am) proud of my body. It took me 10 months to lose 17 kgs of my body weight. But I did it.

But, the comments from people still didn’t stop there. The moment I started losing weight, people started to make things up about my weight loss. “Maybe she was cheated on in a relationship. That’s why she’s lost so much weight”. “Maybe it’s something else”. Gosh! Nobody ever thought about the hard work I had put in to lose the weight I had lost.

I know the effort I had put in and the hard work I had done. My loved ones know what I had been through. That is all that matters to me now. I got to learn many things during my journey to weight loss and it has helped me in other aspects of my life as well. I hope that reading about my journey also helps some other person going through the same thing in their lives. At the end of the day, being healthy is all that matters.