Embarrassed about my appearance as an athlete | The quest to be smaller
Published at : September 01, 2021
“ I always felt embarrassed I didn’t “look the part” for how seriously I took competing. Now I have the understanding that athletes come in all different shapes and sizes.” - The Sam Plan.
When Sam posted this on her story I had to screen shot it because she perfectly described a feeing that I had always been trying to explain and didn’t fully know how to express.
Looking back there are always going to be things you wish you could have done better. Although I don’t regret anything this is something I wish I understood when I was younger.
After our grade fell behind in 4th grade basketball, 5th and 6th grade really helped build my skills, confidence and love for the game and getting better. Which over time, with the help of my teammates and coaches I was able to work on my weaknesses and capitalize on my strengths.
But at times I was more consumed with the thoughts of how I looked instead of how I performed. And I thought the two were directly correlated. I thought that I needed to get smaller in order to be able to jump higher. Which I actually needed to work on my strength and build more muscle. I thought eating less was the answer instead of eating more protein and nutritionally dense foods.
Although I knew nutrition was important I thought about food as the enemy and not the answer.
And it was the same thing freshman year of college, only I actually succeeded and lost 30 pounds and guess what. I didn’t perform better because of it.
I say all of this because if I would have focused more on eating foods that fueled my body and looking at performance based on results and not how I looked I would be a lot further along today.
IG | KalyssaFit or Kalyssawatters_
Tik Tok | Kalyssafit
When Sam posted this on her story I had to screen shot it because she perfectly described a feeing that I had always been trying to explain and didn’t fully know how to express.
Looking back there are always going to be things you wish you could have done better. Although I don’t regret anything this is something I wish I understood when I was younger.
After our grade fell behind in 4th grade basketball, 5th and 6th grade really helped build my skills, confidence and love for the game and getting better. Which over time, with the help of my teammates and coaches I was able to work on my weaknesses and capitalize on my strengths.
But at times I was more consumed with the thoughts of how I looked instead of how I performed. And I thought the two were directly correlated. I thought that I needed to get smaller in order to be able to jump higher. Which I actually needed to work on my strength and build more muscle. I thought eating less was the answer instead of eating more protein and nutritionally dense foods.
Although I knew nutrition was important I thought about food as the enemy and not the answer.
And it was the same thing freshman year of college, only I actually succeeded and lost 30 pounds and guess what. I didn’t perform better because of it.
I say all of this because if I would have focused more on eating foods that fueled my body and looking at performance based on results and not how I looked I would be a lot further along today.
IG | KalyssaFit or Kalyssawatters_
Tik Tok | Kalyssafit
Athlete AppearanceCollege AthleteHigh School Athlete