Hello All, today I pray you are safe wherever you may be on your journeys, and feeling peace when it comes to nourishing your bodies.

Today I come here with a realization that took me years to finally come to, and I hope it gives you the strength to continue your road to recovery.

I have been feeling a little bit of struggle lately. I live with four other people and I stress over the times I feel myself eating the most. Sometimes I want to restrict a little more, sometimes I don’t want people to see me eat. Most of the time I feel I eat too much.

- I try to eat three meals everyday with some snacks in between.

I often wonder why I need that much, even though this is a recommended amount for any human. Logically I understand, but mentally I still struggle.

I then remind myself that the reason I am eating this amount now is because I have spent years in therapy trying to fix my unhealthy habits of restriction.

All of the forced meals, food logs, calorie counting, therapy sessions, growing into bigger jeans — it is all apart of something I was meant to do, in order to be the person I am now. In order to be standing here writing this today.

I used to hate therapy. I used to say it never could work for a person who didn’t want to eat. I used to think it made me weak. — But I owe all of my therapists (with special shout-outs to Val and Brooke) for finally making me understand the value of a meal, acknowledging how hard it is to get there, and for accepting my body for so much more than how it looks.

I do not love the body I am now fully, but I sure as heck appreciate it. I may always think three meals is a little too much, but I will push forward to make sure all of those years of correcting my bad habits do not go to waste.

I am thankful for be where I am today, I love where I am today.

If you would’ve told me three years ago today that I would love my life even though my body is bigger now I would not have believed you. I thought skinny was synonymous with happy, and man I was so wrong. I feel so fulfilled in this life and it is because I am not weighing myself 10 times a day, I am not restricting myself of food, and I am not basing the person I am off the way that I look.

You are so deserving my friends. Deserving of nourishment, self acceptance, and peace of all aspects of life. You are here for a reason, you are in the body for a reason — and there is something so special about that.

With Love,

Rachel