With a lot of people, they seem to get extremely annoyed when I say I'm watching my weight.

"Oh if you're watching your weight, then what does that say about me?"

In other words: Well you're smaller than me, and I personally don't want to watch my weight because I'm content with how I look, so you're making me feel bad about the fact that YOU are.

The most common, however, is an expected eye roll when I kindly pass on the opportunity to indulge in a piece of cake from a birthday party.

"Come on, one piece of cake won't kill you."

"Why are you even on a diet?"

"Yeah…because you really need to watch your weight" *insert another eye roll from the crowd*

The sarcasm-I'm sure-is an attempt to make me feel silly for even contemplating going on a diet. It's like it's the public's way of telling me that I have their approval for me to NOT watch what I eat because I'm small enough and shouldn't be worrying about it.

No one really thinks to ask you why you're considering what you're putting into your body before doing so. They're just automatically offended you'd want to consider it in the first place-solely-because they're bigger than you are.

STOP shaming me for caring what I eat before understanding my back story and relationship with food!

There are several reasons that I'll occasionally choose to watch my weight, but the most important is my mental health.

I have an unhealthy relationship at times with food. Meaning, it can be all or nothing for me. Some days I will stuff my face to the point of getting sick, other days I'll hardly eat at all. I'm not saying either of these things are okay to do, but when my mental health isn't in the best place, neither is my eating. So when I say I'm "watching what I eat" know I'm doing this for me-because I need to. If I do go through one of my phases where I pig out, that next day I physically and mentally feel the toll on my body. So when you continually encourage me to "just eat the freaking piece of cake" you're not understanding that by giving into that cake, I'm allowing myself to enter back into a mindset of all or nothing, and right now I'm not really strong enough to be at a happy medium.

I'll go from-"I can have a healthy relationship with food" to "You know what, I'll eat the cake, and whatever else looks good to me, and start trying to have a good relationship with food tomorrow." Guess what? Tomorrow ends up being next week, and next week turns into a month, and I'm bouncing back between not eating enough and eating too much.

You think by telling me to "eat more" or to "stop worrying" that you're doing me some sort of favor, when in all actuality you're creating an ongoing, exhausting battle for me in my head. Let me decide for myself what goes into my body because I promise it truly doesn't affect you like it does me.

Besides my mental health, I take pride in my body and how I look. I try very hard to talk as little as I can about this subject because our world today has really fixated on stopping shaming bodies-unless they feel like you could stand to gain a few. Then it's essentially a free for all on comments about how gaining weight would probably make you look better-even if you didn't ask nor would want that for yourself.

So would it be acceptable if I told someone bigger than me that they could lose some weight and look okay?

I don't judge you for eating the cake, but STOP judging me if I don't!

To the outsiders, I've forever felt as if I owed someone else a reason for my lack of hunger, or why I was choosing to eat what I do-or not at all.

I've found answers acceptable to the public:

• "Oh I just ate before I got here!"
• "I am not feeling too well."
• My heart pains have been a little bad lately, and my grandpa died of a heart attack at age 37, so I try to be cautious.

So far these have all worked for me.

I've found a really, not so, acceptable answer is:

-I'm just trying to maintain my figure so I'm both mentally and physically happy with myself.

Isn't it crazy mental health is so important to our society unless you're a smaller woman attempting to keep up with your smaller frame?

If you are one of these kind of people to not accept an answer like my honest one,

Try asking your own self these questions first:

• 1."Would I be mad if they asked me WHY I WAS eating?
• 2.Does this person actually not eating affect me in any way?
• 3.Will I feel better about myself after shaming this person for not eating the way I'd choose for myself to eat?

Yes, I'm a somewhat small girl who will occasionally watch what she eats. This doesn't mean I don't pig out when I want to or freaking adore the taste of a Big Mac and Large fry from Mickey D's.

But please, for the love of God, let me decide for myself what I eat and when I eat it…and in the mean time-stop trying to make me feel freaking guilty because of it.