I HATE the term Freshman 15. Why? When I was a freshman I didn’t gain 15 pounds, I gained 40. I started gaining my “freshman 15” well before I arrived at Cornell. The summer before my freshman year I worked as a babysitter for a family of wonderful cooks. I would eat at home and at work and then again at home. At the beginning of the summer I weighed 140 pounds and by the end I weighed 150. Once I got to college, my eating habits got worse because it was the first time I could eat anything I wanted.
No matter how hard you try, it seems like no one is immune to those elusive evil pounds. The first week you might say yes to the pie, promising yourself to join a sports club or go to the gym, but we all know what really happens; you keep saying yes to the pie, the cake, and the cookies but no to exercise. At least that’s what happened to me.
My name is Danielle Copeland. I’m a sophomore Economics major at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. I’m 20 years, 5’2” and 166 pounds. At my height and age, 166 is a very high number but at the end of my freshman year I was much higher. The day I realized I was 180 pounds, the same weight as my mother who is 30 year older and 7 inches taller than me, was the day I realized I had to change. I was categorized as obese, a scary thought for someone who was surrounded by attractive fit females. The worst part, I was so good at dressing for my weight that I hadn’t even realized how bad I actually was (look how sexy I look in clothes, wouldn’t believe I was 166 right).
Flash forward almost a year. I’ve lost 20 pounds, probably more since I keep gaining weight and losing and gaining and losing, since the end of my freshman year but I’m still not happy with the way I am. Yes, I am beautiful. Yes, looks are less important than having a wonderful personality. But I’m still not happy in this body. I want to have the confidence and pizzazz that comes from a smaller, healthier body.
All I have to do is do cardio at least 5-6 days a week and eat healthy. I’m going to be doing SELF’s Drop10 Diet which is great since it has so many different choices and I’m on a meal plan. To make me work harder I’m also doing the Lose the Freshman 15 DietBet. It’s a game where you have 4 weeks to lose 4% of your starting weight and if you do, you split the pot (have to place a bet first).
So I make a proposition for you: Instead of me trying this on my own and falling off the bandwagon like I always do, why don’t we do this together? You inspire me, and I’ll inspire you! This shouldn’t be too hard should it?