For a longest time I had hard time with this suggestion "You just need to love yourself the way you are". "What?" protested my mind, "love THIS?" my face twisting in revulsion.

I thought to love myself as I am meant resignation, meant that I will not be taking any more steps to improve myself. After all, why? If I already love myself, there is nothing to change. ( The whimsical answer to this is "why not?" )

It was all ego's defense. If I loved myself as I am, my ego, so invested, in the definition of me being fat, ugly, unlovable, was getting it's little feet cut from under it. For me the reality of loving self, is that loving myself as I am, with my body, as it is in this moment, I am deciding what will I do now out of place of love. Is a little exercise good for me right now? Oh yes! Is eating lots of ice cream? Nope! How about a big salad of mixed greens? That's a positive. Is starving myself? No.

It's clear when I love myself. Much of my eating disorder behaviors stemmed from self-hatred, they only seemed to have a goal of making myself look better.

(I am writing in past tense, as if recovered completely, even though these are fresh changes, not yet proven by time, but it is how I chose to think of it. No, I don't know what will be, but I can tell the past goodbye)