Never in my life have I ever been deemed "skinny" or "slim." I've always been thick. Molasses thick. I come from a long line of hefty, solid, meaty people. Legend has it that the German people are generally described as a "solid slab" due to a strict diet of beer and bratwurst. That would explain a lot.

So, in other words, the recessive, German, skinny gene in my family tree, if there ever was one, has been recessed to oblivion.

I wasn't fat as a child by any means. I had an active lifestyle. Starting at the tender age of three, I was involved in dance class, gymnastics, ice skating, volleyball, basketball, soccer, and softball. I also wasn't a quitter, obviously.

Once I hit puberty, it was all downhill. The family genes started to fit a little tighter, but I didn’t change my unhealthy lifestyle choices. I ate like I was 8 years old even though I had child-bearing hips as wide as the Mississippi River.

I started to gain unwanted weight in high school, weighing in at about 190 pounds by the time I left for college. As a stumpy woman of only 5'3'', that's a lot of weight to carry around.

It gets worse.

I continued to gain weight throughout my four years of college. And I mean, way beyond the freshman 15. I'm talking a whole 50 pounds. That's right. Fifty. Five zero. By the time I graduated college I weighed 240 pounds.

I was not comfortable in my own skin to say the least. I felt like a beached whale on a good day-Jabba the Hut on a bad one.

I felt ugly.

I felt gross.

I felt like there was no way any guy would ever love me. How could they?

Looking back, I now know that I was not ugly or gross, and as it turns out guys loved me the whole time. I was just too caught up in my self loathing to notice. Hindsight is always 20/20. At one point I contemplated giving up and eating myself into reality show fat. As in, needs to be helicopter lifted out of my room fat, but I decided I didn’t wanna spend that much money on food, so I stayed miserable and, well, normal fat.

About a month after I moved back home from college, my best friend dragged me to the gym with her. Once we were there, the super savvy sales rep named “Joe” convinced me to sign up for a gym membership. Since I was paying $40 a month in gym membership fees with no income, you could have bet your ass I went. Every. Damn. Day.

Yes. You read that correctly. I was motivated by money. That is my incredibly inspiring weight loss story.

Fast forward to a year and a half later and I am back to weighing as much a I did my senior year of high school. I even fit back into my prom dress (eep!).

However, I'm still not 100% comfortable with how I look.

Even though I went through this incredible transformation yadda, yadda, my mental self-image is the same as it was before I lost all the weight. Now, I know what you're thinking and thanks for all the feel goods and warm fuzzies, but this issue is a lot more than skin deep or psych deep or…whatever.

Yes, I dropped a bunch of weight, but that does not mean I feel great about my body.

No matter how much weight I lose, I often think and feel that by now I should look a certain way or I should have achieved some magical goal.

I’ve lost an entire small child in body weight yet—I still have some serious body issues.

Honestly, half the time when someone compliments the new and improved me and how good I look I don't believe them. How messed up is that?

When I go shopping now, I often try on clothes that are too big. I consistently forget that I'm no longer a size 18.

You would think that after all the weight I lost I would have this new found love for my body.

But what I've been learning is that my self-image is 1; completely skewed, and 2; hard to change.

Unless I make a serious effort to love myself and celebrate my small victories, I will continue to be the girl in the dressing room who cried because the cute clothes in "normal sizes" didn't fit me.

I hated that girl. I don't want to be her ever again. Not because of how much I weighed, but because of how I felt about myself when I weighed that much.

Now, I'm not saying I hate myself or that I don't feel more confident than I did before. What I'm saying is that sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm surprised at how good I look. Between mirror glances I walk around with my head down thinking I'm still 240 pounds.

So for anyone who has gone through a dramatic weight loss, transformation, or transition, or who is working on their self-love issues my advice to you is this:

Surround yourself with people who see all the beauty that is you, but you don’t or can’t yet see. With support and consistent positivity in your life, your eyes will begin to see and accept the beauty they see.

Don't forget, you're not the only one who is self conscious. Everyone has insecurities. Trust me.

Also, you look amazeballs.