For a long time, if you asked I would have told you I’d been chubby all my life. I'd have been wrong. It started with something my mother told me in 1st grade. I’d been doing child modeling and, at a convention, my mother told me I was fat. That one moment, one off-handed, unintentional comment became a bullet to my self-image. By sixth grade, I'd developed a womanly curve and to me, it meant I was fat. It ate away at my self-confidence. Over time, I went from eating more than I needed to having no appetite at all.

At a low point, I allowed myself to marry a man who I knew didn’t love me. In 2010, we PCS’d from Alaska to North Carolina and for the first time, I found myself completely alone, no friends and no family aside from the tumultuous relationship with my husband. By our third anniversary, I discovered that he was having an illicit relationship. I spent months asking him what was going on and he had spent months convincing me that I was being paranoid. He quite literally made me feel like I was going crazy. It caused me to fall apart. Eventually, I made the decision to seek help and our marriage seemed to recover. But the stress of our relationship continued to put the pounds on.

Fast forward to January of 2014 and 270+ lbs. I found myself abandoned at my father's house by a man who has spent out entire marriage cheating on me. And I finally found myself stronger than my fear of being alone. In June, I filed for divorce. I'm now down 35 lbs.

I don’t regret my mistakes. I firmly belief that everything happens for a reason. My marriage had to happen for a reason. Six years ago, I was so terrified of being alone that I allowed myself to lower my standards and marry someone who wasn’t worthy of my kindness and sincerity. Today, I am strong enough to endure it. I am strong enough to put myself first and to wait for someone who deserves me. Sure there are good days and bad days but that’s life. And life isn’t about to get me down.