For the last nineteen years I have perpetually been either on a diet, or screwing up a diet. I have hated myself out of relationships and into eating disorders. I have healthfully lost 70 pounds, unhealthfully lost 212, and gained each of them back with inches to spare.
I’m done. I’m done until I’m okay with who I am at any weight. I’m done until someone can tell me I’m attractive and I can believe them. I’m done until I can look at myself naked in a mirror — my round face, my stretch marks, the folds on my back — and be okay with how they look. I want to be able to touch my body without revulsion.
I see so many beautiful women and men (or handsome, if they prefer) who I outweigh by a hundred pounds or more talking themselves down. They think they’re ugly. They think their fat makes them ugly. I look at them with burdensome envy and wish I could tell them what a gift their bodies are, but I know full well that when I was their size I was looking at people twenty pounds smaller and thinking the same thing, never stopping to appreciate what I had.
I will appreciate where I am now. I will allow my body to be loved. I will accept the way I look and I will let it be beautiful.
I am overweight. There are health risks at my size. The thing is, I legitimately enjoy certain kinds of exercise. I legitimately enjoy healthy meals. But I would rather stay in bed than go to the gym at stupid o’clock in the morning. I would rather sit down with a handful of chips that I’m craving than a handful of carrots I’m trying to placate myself with. And I love carrots! But as long as I’m trying to lose weight, as long as I’m looking in the mirror and seeing inadequacy and ugliness, I will never truly enjoy long walks on autumn days, or grilled chicken with steamed vegetables, because they won’t be walks and meals, they’ll be calories. They’ll be a task and a goal and another way to measure my success or failure. I won’t do them, not because I don’t love them, but because I hate what they represent. I will never lose weight by making my life into something I hate. If I lose weight (If.) it will be because I am doing things for the love of them and my body is reacting accordingly. I don’t want to do it if I can’t do it like that.
I am 5’6” and weigh 310 lbs.
I have beautiful pale blue eyes, an enviable peaches n’ cream complexion, auburn hair that lights up like copper in the summer, and a bangin’ rack. I am creative and clever. I am analytical and empathetic. I am a good friend. I am a good person. I have fucking brilliant taste in music.
I am worth more than a bathroom scale and a tape measure can tell.
I’m fat. And I am making the decision to be okay with that.
by 
This is truly inspiring and beautiful. I think you’re amazing for being so open and honest and very brave for making such positive changes in how you treat and view yourself. Thank you so much for sharing something so personal and real :)