I have just come back from 2 weeks of sun, sand and sangria, my first big vacation all on my lonesome.

Before I left for Mexico my inner critic was loud and proud telling me I was about to embark on a disaster, a lonely, sad time away and I should just stay home.

I got an excellent question from a reader:

"I need to lose weight due to health reasons. Partly because I have thyroid-issues, but also because I am on certain medications that lead to fluid retention that is worsened due to my size.HOW IN THE WORLD do I strive towards being body positive, stopping the dieting-bullshit and accepting myself, WHILST trying to lose weight?!"

I always got the impression my partner of 6 years just wasn’t that into me. Let me re-phrase, just not that into my looks. My suspicion was confirmed 4 years in when he told me that he didn’t find me as attractive because I had put on a little weight. Walking in the park at winter when he shamefully told me his secret, I assured him I would “become better”, I would lose weight.

• I am a fraud, I hate my body.
• I am lucky I have a boyfriend the way my body is, I'm surprised he can stomach looking at me.
• I am always looking at people online, comparing myself to them and knowing I don't measure up.
• When I am introduced to new people I know they are thinking "she is ugly and fat".
• I think I am going to get fired from my job any day now, they will realise hiring me was a mistake.
• I would look so much better if I just lost weight, I hate myself that I can't.
• My partner says I am beautiful, but he is just saying that to be nice.
• I am not worthy.

We all have a pesky inner critic that tells us that we don’t measure up; we aren’t good enough, not worthy of the love we have in our lives, not beautiful…enough.

How the heck do we deal with this seemingly ever present Beelzebub?

I’m very liberal and support the movement, but find myself dictated by conventional standards anyways. What are your opinions on this?

Are you a woman? Do you live in our society? Perhaps you’re a man, or any other gender on the spectrum? Are you a human being alive today? Then listen up here!

You are living in a society that tells you what to find attractive, tells you what beauty is. Right now beautiful is thin, white and young, long legged, eyebrows on fleek, flowing hair, thigh gapped...you get the picture.

If you don’t fall into those categories, tough luck, you ugly girl.

But that’s ok, you can try to get those characteristics, right?

Or can you? And at what cost.

Society has a hella lot of rules for us, especially women. Shame is used to control women and what’s a better way to do it than through policing our bodies. Yay!

If you’re a fatty like me, you can try to blend into the background though and be a “good fatty”.

A good fatty is a fat person who knows that their fatness is a moral failing and is doing everything they can in their power to be thin, showing that they know they are a bad person or make up for their horrendous fatness in another way.

Here is a list of things I used to do when I was a good fatty

Children try to make sense of the world and to make sense of this situation I blamed myself.

I shouldn’t have been in my garden playing, I shouldn’t have been riding my bike in front of my house, I shouldn’t have been walking with a friend on the underpass.

I have repeatedly been told that “It will get easier” with looks of sympathy at spin class or to “Keep going, you’ll get there” after a barre session.

I’m fat and that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen the inside of a gym before. It doesn’t mean the only sweating I do is staring through window of a donut store. 

This week, I had the honor of being on Good Morning America as a featured panelist for a discussion about diets!

I remember screaming at my desk when I got the email confirming my appearance, and I nearly fainted when I found out I’d be sharing the stage with some of my favorite body positive influencers. I was asked to be on the show as the anti-diet voice in a discussion with Mara Schiavocampo about her best-selling diet book, THINspiration.

As human beings, our  bodies are always changing.  In fact, we have been constantly changing since the very first day we arrived here on earth.  Every part of our body has been evolving over time.  It’s a natural part of our human evolution and it’s our body’s way of adapting to our needs, our behaviors and the environment around us.  

Imagine if you just decided, against all societal odds and against everything that people say you should feel about your body, that you were comfortable and confident with how you looked and how you ate?

You just decided: I’m confident. I’m okay. I’m doing alright. I should be proud.

Your life would transform in an instant.

The truth is that health is not an obligation, barometer or worthiness, entirely within our control, or guaranteed under any circumstance. The truth is that we should all have the opportunity, but never an obligation, to participate in fitness/athletics/movement at any level we choose. The truth is that we don’t have to make our self-confidence,  our self-esteem, or our self-worth  contingent on our health, our participation in fitness, or anything else. The truth is that the trolls can (and will) yammer on, but we don’t have to care what they say. The truth I realized for me is that I am the only person who can decide how I feel about myself and my body. The truth is that  we are worthy, no matter what.

Aahhh, giving a fuck. It’s a life long battle about what things deserve your fuck giving and what things don’t.

The way I see it, society has asked us women to give a fuck about the wrong things in order to distract us from giving a fuck about the things that really matter. That shit makes me mad girl!

I’m talking about dieting, teaching negative body image, treating women’s bodies as commodities and objects.

For my 18th birthday my dad wrote me a letter. He told me that no matter where I go, what I do or who I become, the most important thing I could ever have is integrity. The strength to stand up for what I believe in, for what's right, even if there are a million other people standing up for what's wrong. Before body positivity, I didn't believe in very much (and I definitely didn't believe in myself), but these days I understand exactly what he meant.

Why are fat bodies hyper-sexualised and slut shamed so often? Is there no other way for a fat women to exist, aside from being the voluptuous siren? With numerous fashion outlets coming up with sporty, alternative fashion for the plus size community, and women showing up for hashtags like Alternative Curves there is a clear message: Like straight sized fashion, we embrace diversity in style and have unique fashion senses.

So, why is it so hard to be confident? 

The reason being confident is so hard is because we think confidence happens without fear and self-doubt. We expect our fear and self-doubt to go away in order to be confident when the opposite is actually true.

What does confidence look like through the camera lens?   

We know what we’re told confidence it’s ‘supposed’ to look like. We’re told it’s our goal, told what it looks like, what it wears, what it’s proportions are.

Or at least that’s what I thought. That’s what a lot of us think, even as we’re in the process of unlearning the expectations of what our body is ‘supposed to look like’. It felt like one of the remaining big expectations I had put on myself in my own body acceptance journey.

Confidence what is it, and how the hell do we get it?! It seems just about as confusing and elusive as the Loch Ness Monster. People debate if it is even a thing. Whereas some people seem to be born with confidence, many others spend their lives trying to grab just a glimmer of what it feels like.