


The day after I moved into my new place I went for a walk along the lake.

I moved out of downtown Chicago and close to the water, which has always been soothing to me. I was feeling hopeless in a lot of different ways, and I felt like things were so out of control. I had recently lost my job I was moving I had ended a relationship with the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I was going through a lot of different transitions. There was something different about the summer of 2014. Maybe I'm just supposed to be the big girl." But deep down I knew that that's not where I wanted to be-I knew I wanted better for my body. (Want to work out more but don't have the time? Then try Fit in 10, the new workout program from Prevention that only takes 10 minutes a day.)Įventually, you just get used to it. I would just gain the weight back and then some. I've done Weight Watchers, but it never stuck. I was on the grapefruit diet, some kind of rice diet, the lemonade thing. By the time I was in my early 40s, I weighed 246 pounds.

MORE: 7 Incredible Results You'll Get From Walking 30 Minutes A Dayįrom then on, it seemed like the more I focused on getting my weight down, the more it continued to climb. While now I know that I was probably just fine at 142 pounds, back then I thought it was terrible because I was comparing myself to girls who were so much smaller. And then I got on the scale and saw that I was 142 pounds. I was with a group of friends and someone had a scale. I was always chunky as a kid, but the first time I remember being really conscious of my weight was when I was in college. Now, 2 years later, she's 153 pounds and loving life. But at 41 years old and 246 pounds, she went for a walk and had a realization that changed her life. “It’s pretty frustrating.Queing Jones, a first grade teacher, had resigned herself to being overweight. “I’m really saddened by the situation,” said Alana Charny, a sophomore at Altholton High School in Columbia, Md., whose family is Belarusian. Teens across the United States have turned to social media to share news, in what has been called the first TikTok war. “I consider myself more Russian than American.”Ĭhecknik said it’s also difficult to speak with family in Russia as they fear “Big Brother” watching over and listening in on their conversations. “The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths-spit them out on the pavement,” Putin said during a call with top officials. Her extended family back in Russia is only able to consume what she calls propaganda.Ĭhecknik, who also relies on a variety of news sources, recalls watching one of President Vladimir Putin’s speeches where he called opponents “traitors.” Meanwhile, Donets is tuned in, watching both American and Russian news. Her school hosted an optional lunchtime conversation on the war, but she said not all students follow the news closely. It’s all kinds of people,” said Donets.“And we’re trying to help each other through this crisis.” “It’s important to understand also that not just Russians, it’s Ukrainians, it’s Belarusians, Georgian people. (Zerkalo is Russian for mirror.) She volunteers at the Education League, a nonprofit that assists immigrant families who are adjusting to the American education system. She was born in Russia and participates in Zerkalo Musical Theater. Sofia Donets, a sophomore at The Potomac School, a private school in McLean, Va., is ingrained in the Slavic community around her. He called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “human tragedy.” That didn’t stop a classmate from confronting Checknik, asking him why “you people are doing this to Ukraine.” Mark Checknik, a senior at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Md., is the son of Russian immigrants. She’s instead been focusing on fundraising for her mother’s GoFundMe in support of Ukrainian refugees, which raised over $20,000 in five days. “Now those comments are still there, but I’ve been getting used to it, too,” Dzantiev said.
