My body has changed and it will continue change in the future — that is natural for anyone. What matters to me most is that even though external change is inevitable, my passion for encouraging women to love themselves at any size and to live, thrive, and to go after their dreams is a part of my permanent nature. Even though my body and mind may evolve through life and experience, my values on this matter have not.

We're fighting a stigma: fat. People are really scared of fat. And I think we need to change people's minds and show that you can be bigger and you can be beautiful just as you are. It's about being and loving yourself and once I discovered that, life got much easier.

I just couldn't have people thinking that I only believe thin is beautiful. Thin is beautiful, but it's not the only kind of beautiful. I didn't want people to get the wrong message because of some retouching.

Models should just be beautiful women who inspire others. They won't be starving themselves because they are being accepted for themselves. Any thinner than today's ideals would be impossible. Any thinner means dead.

There's been a lot of focus on my body, but it's taught me to appreciate myself no matter where I am.

I walked into my agency and I said, "You know what? I can't do this. You're telling me I need to go on a diet? My diet is already zucchini only. What do you want me to do?" And basically, they gave me two options: either stay the way I was and do commercial work, or do plus size modeling. I remember having the usual salad but I added walnuts and salmon and olive oil and I thought, "The world didn't blow up!"I felt fantastic. I wanted to keep that feeling so I made a decision that day that I didn't care. There was more money to be made being healthy.

All women bring something different to the table and we have to appreciate them all.