At the end of my freshman year of college, I realized that I wasn’t happy with who I had become. I complained about my weight, skin, and everything in-between. Not only did my anxiety and stress take a toll on me, but it was a struggle my friends were also facing. I always needed reassurance in who I was. That was the thing though, I didn’t recognize myself. As I look back at pictures from the beginning of freshman to the end of freshman year, the changes were significantly noticeable in my mental and physical health.
I took it upon myself this summer to be sure that going into my sophomore year of college, there would be no doubts about the “new me.” I started the 75-Day Medium, a challenge focused on building better habits around exercise, healthy eating, and mindfulness, with some of my close friends. I wanted to do this for myself. This challenge made me realize that establishing new habits will feel forced, at first. Increasing good habits into my life through this challenge motivated me to keep these good habits going, knowing my future self would be grateful. I learned that it is good to be alone and focus on your goals to be able to become the person you want to be.Â
My friends and I created Instagram pages to hold each other accountable by posting what we were doing to create these habits for our mental health and physical health, throughout the challenge. Our main goals for the challenge were: drinking three water-bottles a day, eating whole unprocessed foods, cutting down on eating out, hitting 10,000 steps a day, one 45-minute workout a day, five minutes of journaling, and reading a chapter of a book every night. Although, I won’t lie, I did take some days off, but these goals I have established in my life have become habits in my everyday life.Â
These activities were not new to me, I had weight-lifted my whole life, but I have found it helpful to incorporate different workout styles into my routine. I went from only knowing how to lift heavy weights to taking up Pilates. Not only did this change me physically, but has also become a new passion of mine. As someone who has gluten and dairy restrictions, I have always been passionate about baking and cooking, but focusing on whole unprocessed foods was a step up. I found that whole foods created more energy throughout the day for my active lifestyle, and gave me more of the nutrients I needed. Food is the fuel that our bodies need. I also find myself not just drinking three water bottles a day, but at least four – giving me more energy and not being dependent on caffeine (which stressed my body in the past). But the best new habit has been walking. At first, it was hard to get 10,000 steps a day but as time went on, I found myself enjoying and looking forward to my daily walk. Slow walks became a place of comfort for me; the silence of my thoughts gave me peace, and time to focus and reflect on things I wanted and the things I wanted to accomplish. It gave me motivation to keep going.
Jumping into this year, it was hard to ensure I stuck to my new habits I had implemented into my life. Although at first I feared the maintenance of new habits, the thing I am most scared of now is going back to the old me, before the habits. The most important thing I learned is that although it feels great to have your friends and family telling you, “Wow, you look great!” or “You seem like you are doing a lot better”, the most important thing to take away from this experience is that YOU are happy with yourself. You have watched yourself grow and are happy and proud in the spot you are in now. We, as people, may find ourselves in bad situations, and we should be proud to know that we can count on ourselves to get out of those situations, and still have friends and family cheering us on.Â