From an Intern's Perspective: My Story

As many of you know, I was an intern at Hilton Head Health this past spring. One of the best parts of being an intern is having the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and from all walks of life! I met people from Germany, Canada, Barbados; I met someone who used to work for the Carters, a couple that lives on a cruise ship, and a stay at home mom who volunteers at her local library. I learned countless lessons from everyone I met. I feel I learned more from them than they learned from me.

It’s funny because no matter where everyone was from, I was always asked the same three questions while talking over the Sunrise Beach Walk: One, what’s your major? Two, what are your plans after school? And three, do you have a boyfriend. (Yes, this is the honest truth! :-)) I’m not sure if it was my own insecurities, but one question that no one asked during my internship was had I ever struggled with weight loss. The answer to this question is yes, I most certainly have. Today, I’d like to share my story with you.

Growing up I was always the sibling who was more interested in singing and movies than going outside to play. I hit my growth spurt early and was the tallest and heaviest kid in class grades 3 - 5. I had a gap in my teeth and was jealous of all the pretty, thin girls in class who could wear shorts while I would only wear pants. It was this way all the way through middle school, minus the gapped teeth because three years of braces fixed that.

I gained some confidence in high school and started to take better care of myself. I was finally out of those size 20+ jeans but still never considered myself to be one of those pretty, thin girls. My confidence continued to build, however, when I started to take on leadership roles in school organizations. Going into college, I just stopped caring about the numbers on the scale and only focused on school, voluneering and making friends my freshman year. This is when I had my wake up call.

I had always lied on my driver’s license and said that I was 150 even though I knew I hadn’t been 150 since 3rd grade. But I was taking a boxing class at my school gym and felt great. I just knew that I had to be close to weight I had always wanted. I stepped on the scale. Looked down. Stepped off the scale. Checked the batteries. Stepped on the scale again. No, same number. I was staring at 200 lbs. Now I know that this number may not seem very high, but this is when I had an awakening because I had no idea where my weight was! At that moment I turned things around. Nothing drastic, but that was when I stopped ordering fast food everyday and stopped getting dessert with every meal. That day scared away from to getting on a scale again.

It was with this mentality that I arrived to H3. In my mind, I was the heavy, gapped tooth girl who had been so her entire life... and I was supposed to help people lose weight?! I even remember thinking, I wonder if they will even hire me because I’m clearly not setting a good example. This is when I had another awakening. It was in Beth’s body image class. She asked us to name 5 things we liked about ourselves. I actually couldn’t believe that I was able to name 5 things! Then, everyone else in the class was able to name even more things that I didn’t think of. This was the first time that I shared with anyone at H3 that I had struggled with my weight my entire life. I didn’t realize that I still thought of myself as heavy and unattractive until this moment when I was being told by perfect strangers how beautiful I was. This class will mean more to mean than anyone of them will ever know. Moments like this are why I hope to stay with H3 for years and years to come. I want to help someone else have this moment. I want to show someone else that the person you used to see, or maybe even see now, does not have to define who you are for the rest of your life. As I said before, I think I have learned so much more from H3 Guests than they have ever learned from me.

I'm still not at the weight that's on my driver's license, but I'm okay with that. I have embraced a healthy lifestyle and feel so much healthier than I have ever felt in my life.