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Planet Field Hockey

Jessica Reed played NCAA Division 1 field hockey at American University in Washington DC for four years. She is now working and playing field hockey in England...



Before I left for college I learned of the “freshman 15” -- the infamous 15 pounds that every college freshman is expected to gain -- when former high school students returned bearing their extra baggage around their waist. Personally, I wasn’t worried, because I was going to be a college athlete, the left midfield on a Division I Field Hockey Team, and whatever I ate would be worked off tenfold, or so I thought.

“It’s all muscle” people would tell me, as my body physically changed during the first few months of college athletics, the result of rigorous training. In addition to daily field hockey practices, the team worked with a strength coach.

It was the spring of my freshman year, during a training test, when I was nicknamed “The Beast” after leading the team with 60 consecutive squats at 95 pounds, while the majority of my teammates managed a mere 20 each.

At first, there was a certain pride in being The Beast, which I associated with being at the top in the competitive environment. I was in awe of myself, my new body definition and the strength and confidence that came with it. I was hooked on being physically powerful.

But soon later, my shapely body became bulky, leaving me to wrestle with pants that wouldn’t climb my massive thighs, and struggle with shirts that hugged my widened chest and bulging biceps. Frustrated, I decided to brave the scale.

The end of my second semester I stepped on the doctor’s-office-type scale positioned in the gym. I was ill prepared for what I would feel when it finally balanced -- 153. I hadn’t gained the freshman 15; I gained 25 pounds. Devastated, it didn’t matter whether it was lean muscle or body fat that piled the pounds on the scale and split the seams in my clothes. I was only 5’4”, weighing 153, so I thought I was fat and had to lose weight.

I started out with healthy intentions to lose weight; I tried to avoid the traditional carrot-stick diet, which would deprive me of energy needed for my intense training schedule, by investing in athlete specific performance books to learn the way I should eat. However, I couldn’t fit back into my size fives quick enough.

So the fall of my sophomore year, against the advice of my books, I began to cut weight during the competition season. I combined compulsive eating habits with a neurotic work out schedule. It was my undaunted obsession to be strong that led me daily to the gym for extra workouts, but it was my new obsession to be skinny that led me to the gym instead of to dinner.

Paradoxically, as the pounds dropped, so did my energy level, my grades and my self-esteem. I was depressed all the time because each pound I lost never seemed like enough. I remember the spring of my sophomore year, after a run, I returned to my dorm room and examined myself in the mirror. I sank to the ground in tears at all the fat I saw. My roommate turned to me and said: “You have a problem!”

Me? A problem? My clothes fit better than ever. Guys loved my slender yet incredibly fit physique. My coach raved, as my running times were now the team’s fastest. My admiring teammates asked my advice on vitamins, supplements and weight loss.

But, my rapid weight loss mixed with my intense workout schedule soon forced my body to respond. During the summer before my junior year, I developed shin splints so painful that I was forced to give up running in order to heal before the start of the fall season. So I indulged in herbal laxatives to keep the weight off, even though I knew they were the root of my sudden acne problem. And the guilt of abstaining from physical activity forced my return to the gym to lift weights, which again added more muscle to my body and pounds to the scale. My obsession with two competing body images – skinny and strong -- haunted me through four years of college athletics.

It was this summer, once again unhappy with my weight, I began to repeat my extreme diet and exercise regimen. But this time was different. There weren’t any fitness or training tests. I had no required practice times, scheduled meals, or body-fat measurements. I had no team, no one to compete with or against. Then it hit me, even without college athletics I was still competing -- with myself.

Four years I competed for an ideal image and the happiness that I thought would accompany it. I thought if I had the weight of the skinny girl on the cover of Cosmopolitan and the strength of the girl on the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine that I would be happy. But I never did find that happiness on the scale or in the gym.

I graduated in May, from college and from competitive athletics. But it took stepping away to graduate from the mindset that the numbers on the scale and the sizes in my clothes dictate what I see or how I feel when I look in the mirror – they don’t.

For the first time in four years, I stopped competing with my body and weighing my self-esteem. For the first time in four years, I am happy.

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