I'm having a really hard time lately dealing with body image. Of course, I've never looked at myself, especially naked, and thought "wow, how awesome is that!" My man keeps telling me how beautiful and sexy I am but I just can't buy into it. I've gotten to where I'm uncomfortable being intimate because of my insecurities. Does anyone else have this issue?

I think that many of us who are overweight have body issues. You are not alone there, as I am in the same boat.

Becoming comfortable with one's self is a personal journey. Someone told me that the first step to losing weight is learning to love oneself. How do I do that? All I've known growing up is hatred and negativity towards how I look. The first step I took was confronting the major sources of negativity in my life. What is holding me back?

I had a love/hate relationship with my brother my whole life. I was jealous he was skinny and hated him because he said awful things about me and would often beat me up. Yet, I loved him because he was my brother and I was supposed to look up to him as a role model. I stopped talking to him about 15 years ago and knew this was what needed some fixing in my life. I confronted the issue head on and now we are starting to patch things up. He confided in me that even he has body issues, but he uses the negativity he receives as fuel to improve himself. I on the other hand turned to binge eating. Being able to set myself free of the negativity has really improved how I feel about myself. I don't think I've reached the level of loving myself yet, but I'm getting there.

Everyone's journeys are different because everyone's issues are different.

But your man speaks the truth: YOU are beautiful.

I was just talking to my husband about this issue this morning. I was trying to explain to him that sometimes it is hard for me to want to be intimate because I hate the way I look. I feel like if I wouldn't want to be intimate with me then how can he want to. He of course doesn't agree with my image of myself but what can he really do. I have been searching for a therapist to talk to about my obesity and eating issues. I would love to learn how to love myself throughout my journey to better health.

This is an interesting conversation, because I find myself going back and forth on how I feel about my body. Some days I'm just like, "Yeah, buddy. Look at those curves! I'm sexy as all get out. Lemme put on some red lipstick and go rock it out somewhere." And other days, like yesterday at the gym, this intense shame comes over me. I'm convinced that people are watching me and making fun of me. That the woman taking a selfie in the mirror is really taking a photo of me trying to lift weights and posting how ridiculous I look. That my body is disgusting and so is my lack of strength.

But most of the time, I feel neither one of those. Most of the time, I look in the mirror and I just see ME. I see the pimple I've been trying to get rid of for three days. I see a stomach roll that maybe looks a teensy bit smaller now that I've lost 8lbs? I see my cellulite, and that's okay, because my butt still looks pretty nice in scrubs and no one can see the cellulite underneath (and the person who does see me naked with my cellulite doesn't mind it at all because he's a big fan of my butt lol). I see my pretty brown hair I'm thinking of getting done at a salon next month.

It's taken me YEARS to get to the point where I'm okay with what I see in the mirror, for better or worse. Honestly, it took a bit of therapy as well. The end result is that I feel tons better about myself now, 30 years old and 254lbs, than I ever did when I was 17 and 145lbs and in the middle of intense self-loathing.