the reason I lost 45 pounds when I was only weighing 165.

During my whole childhood, I use to admire my father. He was kind of the Don Jon of the family, not in the way that he uses to get laid with every woman but mostly in the way that everyone looked up to him. I knew that I wanted to be like that one day, but I was always chubby. My dad wanted me to be like him when I grew up and, so he used to tell me a lot that I was too fat for my age. Every time I'd eat something, he would get mad at me because he believed that if I'd get heavier, I wouldn't be able to get girls and that I would look bad in front of him when his friends were around. Spoiler alert: I was 11 when he started telling me that I needed to control myself with the food. I enjoyed playing soccer and I was good at it but it never helped me to lose weight. I had this idea in my head that I could never do something with my life as long as I have a big stomach. When he died, I was 5foot11 and weighted around 185 and, I promised myself to lose a maximum of my weight. I wanted to feel like I had no fat on my body. My father died on April 15, 2015, and when I moved to Montreal in September 2015 and weighed 165 my friends and family would keep telling me that I looked good and that my weight was perfect. I wanted more because I was so terrorized by the words of my father when he was alive and wanted to make sure that I would never have to think about working out anymore. I started a horrible diet in January 2016 when I moved into my new apartment. My diet consisted of two meals a day with absolutely no carbs. I'd go to the gym every day for about two hours and I would never miss one day. I would not have any cheat meals until I was sure that there was no fat left on my body. I kept this routine for about six months. I lost almost 40 pounds and I was skinnier than ever. I was so proud of myself, there was no fat on my body and everyone could see every damn bone there is. In June, I went back to Morocco for a vacation and I was so happy to show the results to my family. Most of them thought I got into drugs because it was not possible to be that skinny voluntarily. I assured them that I was not and that I was proud of my body. I cared about their opinion but I knew in my head that if my father was here he would be proud of how I look. I looked like him when he was in stage 4 cancer but in my eyes, it was normal even though everybody kept telling me that something was wrong with me. My family kept telling me to eat more but I did not want to. I was happy with the way I looked and, I knew that no one could take that away from me. In September 2017, I got into a new CEGEP and met new people in which one of them became one of my best friends. His name was Eric, and the first thing he asked me was ¨hey man, are you on drugs or something¨. At that exact moment, I knew that something was wrong with me and that people identified me as a junkie because of my body. Eric became my new workout partner and provided me with a new diet. I won"t lie, it felt good to eat a lot again and have no problem thinking whether I was going to take weight because clearly, I needed some. I started gaining more and more and, the good part was that it was mainly muscles and not fat so I kept going and going. Today I am still 5 feet 11 and weigh 180 pounds. I am happy with myself because I am healthy. I am eating well and have a good lifestyle. The moral of my story is not to care about the critics of others unless it got to a point where your weight is unhealthy for you. My dad put a lot of pressure on me to look like him but I realize today that I am not him, I am me and I am proud of who I am. As long as you are comfortable in your own body, don't let anybody tell you the way you should look because that is unhealthy.