Clearly, I'm not a size zero.

I'm not even in the vicinity. My pant size may not be in the single digits, and that's okay. I'm not bashing the "skinny girls," because how "body positive" would I be if I put down one body type to boost up my own? I've never been skinny, and that's just how it is. I love to exercise and I also love food. It's not a bad thing, so please try not to let the number on that stubborn tag at the back of your pants dictate how you feel about yourself. I'll let you in a secret, that number on your tag? It's not even right. Depending on the company, brand, or store, clothes are just sized differently. Believe me, with all of the different sizes I have hanging in my closet, you would think that there are three different girls living with me. I could go to one store and be one size and then go to the next store and be three sizes bigger/smaller. It can be deceiving, and make you feel like crap about yourself. I've been there.

The media glorifies a certain body type, and if you don't look like that it somehow makes you feel as if you aren't as pretty, sexy, or perfect as that body we see on tv, or that girl we see walking down the hallway, or that one friend you have with that perfect hour glass figure.

I've never been a single digit size, and it was always my goal until I started driving myself crazy, developing unhealthy habits and a bad relationship with food. My life revolved around a never ending cycle of tracking calories, pounds, and going to ridiculous lengths to try to look like that perfect image in my head of what I should look like in order to please myself and others.

In elementary school is when I started trying to lose weight, I could've only been about nine or ten when I realized I was the "bigger" girl out of all of my friends, boys started making comments, and nasty girls called me fat. All throughout my life people made negative comments about my body until I started losing weight, and that's when all of a sudden I was praised with comments like, "You have never looked so good," "Wow, you got hot," "I'm so jealous of your strength and willpower, I could never do that," "You were fine before but now you look great!" All of these compliments and praise just went to my head and fed into this desire of mine I had to keep shedding pounds.

This obsession with my weight started when I was really young and just got worse and worse throughout high school. And you know what? I did loose the weight. I went down about 12 pant sizes. No one called me fat anymore, I no longer felt like the ugly friend, I got attention from the cute boys at school, and I was happy.

Or at least I was superficially happy, but I realize now that I wasn't truly happy. Now, in my third year of college, sure I wish I was thinner sometimes, and maybe as a college kid I eat way too much ice cream and pizza, but I am happy. The past few years I have let myself enjoy food, instead of worrying about how many minutes I had to run to burn off the calories in the slice of pizza I just ate.

I was ruining my life and restraining myself from things just to lose a few pounds. I hated my body for so long. I started dating my current boyfriend a few years ago and he has helped me love and accept myself immensely, but it wasn't until the past year or so that I have really learned to love myself and my body for what it is. My days were spent obsessing over how I looked and what other people thought of me. Then I realized, why am I doing this? I'm making myself miserable. I'm taking away from my quality of life for a stupid number on the scale.

I still feel like crap about my body sometimes, and then after a few minutes it over it again, which is something I could never say before. I have gained weight since I lost about 60 pounds a few years ago, and sometimes that gets to me. But compared to back then, I am enjoying my life so much more and I am in control of myself.

So yeah, I may not be skinny, but the idea of being "skinny" was ruining my life. So I am not sorry I'm not a size zero. I'm not sorry that I have rolls when I sit down, or that I have cellulite on my legs.

Trying to get skinny I made myself tired, depressed, sick, sad, lonely, mean, and obsessive.

Now, I'm not skinny but I am happy, energetic, and free.

I am living a better life for me.