My therapist told me I need to learn to love myself. It sounds easy enough, but really, how do you just wake up one day and learn that? It feels like something you should just do involuntarily, like swallowing or blinking, but now I have to work on it. It feels so forced. I mean, I know I went to a good school, and people tell me I'm smart and creative, but I don't KNOW that. I don't know how to make myself feel that.

I already knew to eat clean and listen to my body, to only eat when I was in a calm mental state. Everyone knew. But when you're fat in the head, it's never about knowing the answers. It's about living them.

I hated the reflection in the mirror. I wanted so much to be someone else... I thought that if I was thinner, the rest of my life would change.

The times in my life when I've been my thinnest, I've been a walking psycho wreck. Forget the fact that I was basically starving myself; skinny was usually due to some kind of loss. Death. Rejection. Divorce.

Don't be so damn hard on yourself. Yeah, you screwed up. You're not perfect, fine. Learn from it. But don't punish yourself. Be kind to you, even when you screw up. You'll bounce back eventually. You'll make up for it.

It's about not rewarding your children with food, not always celebrating with food. I do think it's important to find other ways to comfort our children and ourselves, to work other ways of celebrating and rewarding.

I can trace every romance of my life back to a meal. My memories are enhanced by the tender morsels had at tables across from lovers, on blankets with friends who'd eventually become more, in banquets, barbecues, and breakfasts.