I am proud of my struggle, tumbles and stumbles along the way. This blog has meant a lot to me. I am lucky to be able to go back in online time to see and read how far I have come in this crazy journey. I am happy to say that I very RARELY deal with feelings of self loathing like I did back in 2008. Getting the alcohol out of the way was a huge piece of it, but finally addressing the disordered eating is doing it’s job opening my eyes as well. Back in 2008, here is what I had to say. So much still holds true today…..

“This is about me (and maybe you??)
It is about my struggles with self loathing. It is about the struggle to be better, but never defining better so consistently “failing”.

It is about the revolution of not doubting my own worth based on how much weight I lose.

I started to struggle to come up with phrases that would help me when challenged about my reversal of dieting culture. I often came up speechless when someone would comment on another person’s weight, what they ate and how much of it in a day, how many pants sizes they had dropped. I had to come up with some one liners to lead me through the responses. This became my mantra.

• I am not how much I weigh or how much I’ve gained or how much I’ve lost.
• I am not what I eat…I’m what I do and what I say.
• Changing my shape and size isn’t going to make me happy
• Changing the way I feel about my body/myself will.
• I respectfully decline to discuss your size, my size, her size or his size in any way.
• I will eat what I want, and move on.
• I swim, bike, or run every day…being healthy doesn’t mean being thin.
• I embrace my body as a part of me.”