I didn’t like how heavy I was. I wanted to lose weight so badly that I would try anything—dieting, exercising, even starving myself—just to shed a few pounds. I believed that if I could lose weight, I’d finally love myself, and because I didn’t love myself, I didn’t believe anyone else could either. I pushed everyone away. When a man showed interest in me, I’d push him so hard he’d stop trying. In my mind, they were all liars. How could they love me with all this weight? It had to be a lie!

I was desperate to become thin, convinced that was the only way I’d be able to love myself, and in turn, be loved by others. Every time I ran into old friends and they commented on how big I had become, I’d be crushed. I’d starve myself even more, thinking if I were just thinner, I’d finally give myself the love I deserved.

One day, it worked. Maybe it was the diet, the exercise, or simply the unhappiness and starvation, but I lost the weight. I was thin. My clothes were loose, my belly was gone, and so were the flabby arms and rounded cheeks. Everything I wanted to disappear, did. I was exactly how I thought I wanted to be—thin, very thin.

But the strangest thing happened: I still wasn’t happy.

I wore trousers, but my once-full curves were now flat. The body-hugging dresses no longer showed any shape. The rounded cheeks that used to bother me were gone, and now I missed them. Friends saw me and said things like, “Oh, your bum is flat now,” and “You’ve lost your cheeks.” Once again, I felt terrible. If only I could gain a little weight in the right places, maybe then I’d be happy.

But I didn’t get thicker—I got sick. The extreme dieting and starvation caught up with me. As I lay in bed, weakened from everything I had done to lose weight, none of it mattered anymore. I didn’t care if I was slim or fat. All I wanted was to be healthy again.

When I finally regained my strength, I realized something important: It doesn’t matter if you’re slim, fat, or somewhere in between—if you don’t love yourself, you’ll never feel good enough.

If you think you're too big, exercise because you love yourself, not because you hate yourself. If you feel underweight, eat well and stay active, but do it out of self-love, not self-loathing. No amount of weight loss or weight gain will make you love yourself if you don’t start by accepting and loving the person you already are. You only have you, and if you don’t love yourself, no one else can do that for you.