I had a girlfriend who was so tiny, I mean sooooo tiny, she took a size 6 and was struggling with diets to get into a size 5. This started in high school, and the last I was in touch with her at almost 30...she was still trying to get into that size 5.

FOR YEARS, she spent a fortune on going to a gym and had a personal trainer. She saw shrink after shrink, convinced she was unable to lose that "last 10 lbs" because of some early childhood trauma preventing her from achieving "success". She was a UCLA graduate, a bright and highly talented young blonde blue-eyed cutie, an actress, a woman with a wicked sense of humor...and a woman posessed. She tried every diet you could imagine. She was living in L.A., so of course this didn't help at all...she'd mock the women she ran into at the tennis court who were on a liquid protein diet ("oooooh, I just had a tablespoon of that stuff and I'm sooooo FULL!"). She did hilarious impressions of the agents she'd seen who dismissed her as too fat to handle, advising her to lose ten pounds and come back. She was hip to the writings of size acceptance movement; it was she who told me to read "Fat Is a Feminist Issue". This girl had it all...and the terrible, time consuming, energy consuming, all-consuming need to be a size 5. Her boyfriend, in an attempt to be supportive (misguided however it was), had bought her an expensive size 5 pleated skirt, so she could hang it in her closet and "have something to work for".

She never liked herself. She kept calling herself fat, and a loser. She kept insisting she must be psychologically a mess because she could not get herself into a size 5.

She did a few acting stints and moved on. She never did complete her acting career.

Now...please consider actress Camryn Manheim..winner of the 1998 Emmy for Best Supporting Actress In A Drama Series...(video clip available here). Camryn's book, "Wake Up, I'm Fat!" tells how she was pressured by those she loved, by her peers, by agents, by everyone my little blonde friend had been pressured by. The difference is not a question of talent--believe me, my friend was talented--

The difference was that Camryn refused to give in, and kept hold of her self esteem. She was fortunate to have that ability; we aren't all born that way or manage to get that way, it takes WORK.

I grew up feeling the same way--that if I could succeed in losing weight, there was nothing I would not be able to do. I was told this repeatedly, as though it was the acid test of my self worth. Genetically speaking, my taking a size 12, much less a size 5, had long been out of the question. When in high school, my gym teacher took me aside and told me unless I lost weight I may as well not plan on going to college. I was all of 40 lbs overweight at the time. I took a size 18. I asked why not...her answer? "How will you manage to get around the campus if you're big like that?".

So I decided I guess I wasn't going to college.

My grades were lousy (I never opened a book) and I put off any ideas of what I was going to do once I finished high school. My friends, all weight-to-height proportionate and well accepted by their families, were planning to go to great colleges--and when the subject came up, I was unusually quiet. I managed to pass all my courses despite my apathy, because most of the final grades were based on final exams. My average was 75%, with a passing score being 60%. Had I felt the least bit competent who knows what I might have done. That was one very important turning point in my life...and thanks to a few badly chosen words, I let it slide past me.

I know of one other bbw who got a scholarship and let it go, she went home humiliated because she was unable to fit in the seating provided. You know. The standardized, one size fits all seating we encounter everywhere...especially college.

I finally did go to college in my 30's as a single mom, but I wonder what my life had been like had I had the gumption to tell everyone to take a hike like Camryn did.

My point is...DON'T put off living your life while waiting for that last 10 or 20 or 40 or hundred pounds to go--!! THIS is the first day of the rest of your life. GO for it!!

Check out my links to size acceptance sites, publications, style, fashion, all there is to feed your head with--and feed your spirit--and get out there and KICK ass!!A beauty makeover is a good place to start. I know it sounds shallow but it does a LOT of good to see yourself in another light. It makes you feel you can be anything and do anything...and you can.