Here you are. You've made it to 32. Seems like just yesterday when you were 9 and became aware that you weren't as thin as your friends. No matter-you are cute and strong and popular amongst your peers.
11 yrs old, and on your first diet...Mom has always struggled with her weight and she's removing the skin from her chicken. So will you. She's having boiled potatoes with no butter. So will you. You overhear your brother call you fat. Your heart breaks a little.

You spend your entire teenage years doing awful things to yourself. You'll smoke for 13 years. Gorge late at night-almost every night. Starve yourself during the day. Eat enough to physically incapacitate you. Eat nothing for days. Eat a large pizza. Eat 6 donuts in a bathroom stall. Try to purge and hate yourself for not being able to do it. Become vegetarian for 5 years. Then follow it up with high-protein. Then low-fat. Then soups. Then Slimfast. Then low-cal. Then nothing. Get fatter. Then stop eating almost anything.

You meet a guy. Spend 5 years with him. Weight will go from 120lbs to 150lbs by dating him. He likes to eat, and wants you to eat. But he'll resent you for getting fatter. He'll mention your weight often. You do Atkins. You lose weight. He starts feeding you and tells you to stop dieting. You regain the weight. He'll then cheat on you. Where did my 5 years go?

And now you've spent the last few years steadily losing weight, getting thinner than you have ever been before. You start exercising. You've become strong. You start realizing that you've in fact, stopped dieting. That this has become life. That A-Ha moment...

You can now eat with friends and occasionally indulge. Indulging now just means working a little harder the next day to eat clean. Maybe an extra mile on the treadmill.
You've never regained any weight over these years. You finally trust yourself.






Dear body, I've spent 99% of my life hating you. Being so awful to you, I could cry. Physically. Emotionally. I've abused you.

I'm going to spend this moment right now to acknowledge you.
I spend so much time hating you...I've never thanked you. Not once.
So here it goes:

Thank you for releasing the weight when I've wanted you to. Thank you for gaining muscle. Thank you for running almost every night. Thank you for somehow, slowly, springing back from my constant binges and somehow allowing a flat stomach, toned legs and an actual waist to form. I don't know if I deserve this from you after spending most of my life fighting you. But now that I'm treating you right...finally...I can't believe you haven't turned your back on me. Before I go back to over-analyzing you and finding those flaws once again...before I forget to say it. I love you. I love you. Thank you for your gifts.