Why I Will Never Bring Diet Talk Into The Body Positive Community

I started my first diet when I was 10. It was nothing too extreme - swapping chocolate bars for snacks with fewer calories, exploring the lower fat options at the supermarket. I slowly dropped a dress size, and basked in the compliments of my peers. I began to value my iron will, my devout commitment to my mission of slimming. With my eyes locked on the holy grail of thin, my self worth laid bare and exposed, I was hooked. 

Swapping snacks turned into eliminating snacks, meals got smaller and smaller, any diet that allowed 'treats' was out of the question; I thrived on restriction. I found something so intoxicating about that routine, that mixture of gnawing hunger and waning hope as the day goes on. The torturous workouts and the denied cravings that earn so much praise -

"You're so dedicated! I wish I could make myself go to the gym, how'd you do it?!"

"Look at you! So skinny! How did you do that?"

"You have so much will power, how can you turn down chocolate cake?!"

The answer that I never said -

Self hatred.

How Do I Sound, Through Your Eyes?

This past week has been a whirlwind. A beautiful, chaotic whirlwind, with a TV appearance at the centre of it.

I was lucky enough to be invited on ITV This Morning, and was interviewed by Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford. (pssssht, you can watch it here). Despite being terrified, I held it together quite well and managed to get a little bit of this magical movement out there. But when I shared the video with my friend Whitney, she showed me that there was a huge problem with it all.