“You’re going to be so pretty when you grow up,” I remember people telling me when I was a little girl. Oh, how I waited for that day! All of my dreams would come true. I would be beautiful!

But at 15 I was nothing like I had imagined. I was chunky and hated my body. I wore only black clothes to try to make myself look thinner. I also wore a lot of makeup that became a mask to hide behind. I remember crying and being incredibly depressed because I thought I was so fat I didn’t deserve to live. It’s easy to see how ridiculous such thoughts are when it’s others who are thinking them, but when you’re the one, it’s a different story.

I started dieting at 12 and kept at it till I was 17. In spite of all my parents did to encourage me and keep me from going to extremes, I would starve myself, then binge, then have horrible bouts of guilt for not sticking to whatever incredibly rigid diet I had put myself on that month. Instead of the diets working for me, my metabolism just became very slow, and I would gain weight by eating the smallest amounts of food. I went through a bulimic phase, but thankfully that didn’t last long.

I had a terrible image of my body and couldn’t imagine ever being happy till I was thin, but for me that was impossible. The more I tried, the more I failed; and the more I failed, the more depressed I became.

Once I decided to go on a starvation diet, and my younger sister decided to join me. We secretly starved ourselves for 10 days and finally became so weak that all we could do was lie in our beds. Thankfully that diet didn’t last any longer than that and wasn’t repeated.

One day, after three months of an exceptionally tough diet and an overly intense three-times-a-day exercise routine, I stepped on the scale and my heart sank. I hadn’t lost a pound. I was out of ideas and at the end of my rope. My desire to lose weight had become an obsession, a nightmare, an insane, vicious cycle where I kept trying to gain control but couldn’t.

Finally I was fed up. I tried eating whatever I wanted, but I’d abused my body so badly for so long through extreme diets that it took some time before my metabolism stabilized.

Then a thought came to me. What if I acted like I thought I was a cool person, just the way I was? Maybe other people would think so too. What would happen if I wasn’t always obsessing over my weight? Sure I was chunky, but I liked chubby people. Maybe others would like me if I accepted myself. I determined to not talk about my weight or dieting in front of others. Why draw more attention to it? Who knows? Maybe they wouldn’t even notice. This may sound like a dumb idea, but it actually worked.

Around that time my family moved. The next several years were some of my chubbiest, but they were also the source of some of my fondest memories. In new surroundings I made a lot of friends, and the boys seemed to like me more. Suddenly people thought I was really cool. I couldn’t believe it!

The decision to just be me was one of the best decisions I ever made, because ever since then I have been able to think a lot more positively about myself. Even though I knew my “flaws,” I never let myself dwell on them. I made a conscious effort to only think good things about myself, and after a while I started doing that subconsciously.

I eventually lost a lot of my teen chubbiness, but I never became slim. At 27, I’m a lot more comfortable with myself. Plus I see that there are more important things in life than my weight. I may never look like a cover girl, I’ll always be me, but I might as well be the best me I can be! I’m going to keep on being happy just as God made me.

If you feel like you’ve been handed a raw deal, you’re not alone. But consider this: Today you can decide where you’re going to go from here. Are you going to complain, or worse yet, beat yourself up about the way the Creator of the universe chose to make you? Have you ever considered that He handpicked your features? Maybe you don’t like them, but He sure does! In His eyes you are perfectly made. Choose to think positively about yourself, and you can change your life forever.  

Theresa Leclerc is a member of the Family International in South Africa. ∏  

You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are.—Jeph Jacques