I took my first diet pill at 15. It took me years to finally love my body as it is.

Courtesy of PollyAnna Brown Growing up, I was curvier than my friends, and in a pre-Kardashian era, I felt like I didn’t fit in.   I stole my mom’s diet pills from the medicine cabinet and went from a size 11 to a 2 in months.   I’m still working on loving my body as it is, but I’ve made huge progress by not taking those pills.

  It was 2001, and my baby fat years were getting to me. I developed early and didn’t fit in with my skinny-mini friends. Growing up in the days of Slim-Fast and “there’s no such thing as too thin,” my curvy body in the pre-Kardashian era was desired by men and shamed by women.

I simply didn’t fit in.  No more, I decided.  I would do anything to look like the other girls my age and fit into the size-zero jeans my best friend wore.

Soon, I was jumping on top of the counter, opening the medicine cabinet, and fishing out my mom’s diet pills.  I restricted myself to eating only 18 grams of fat a day, and I worked out constantly ⁠— running about five to 15 miles a day. I ran as often as I could, and I ate as little as possible while taking diet pills to help me shed weight faster.

 I went from a size 11 to a size 2 in three months. From friends to coaches to family members, people praised me for losing weight — for taking my health seriously. No one knew what I was doing to make that happen.

All they saw was me shrinking from what was considered overweight ⁠— at the time ⁠— to thin. It took me 15 years to recover from my unhealthy dietingWhile I did heal from that disordered eating and exercising, diet culture was still pervasive around me. Because I lost so much weight as a teen, I gained weight as I got older.

I had gotten down to 118 pounds, and my body fluctuates now, but I average about 145 pounds, and that’s healthy for me now at 36. Diet culture taught me that my worth was tied to being thin, and it affected everything: how I showed up for friends; what roles I took in my relationships; and how I was willing to be seen in my business. If I wanted to be truly free of diet culture, I was going to have to value myself differently.

 This past holiday season, I put some weight on, and it was seriously hurting my confidence. A friend told me that she was using a doctor-prescribed injectable to lose weight, and I seriously considered it. It was just to get off a few pounds, right?Not so much.

I found out a potential side effect was thyroid tumors, and I wasn’t willing to risk it. This made me realize I needed to start thinking about my weight differently. So I asked myself this question, “Do I want to be on the never-ending quest for the perfect body with the lowest percentage of body fat, perfect boobs, a big round butt, and a snatched waist, constantly reaching for the next shake, diet, medicine, or surgery in order to be seen as valuable and worthy to the world? Or do I want to choose a different path?”  That’s when I got to work on my mindset, finding which beliefs I bought into that were hurting me.

The number of times “I’m not thin enough to. . .

” or “I’m not pretty enough to…” came up were disturbing.  I don’t have it down perfectly yet, but I’ve made incredible strides.  I’m not beating myself up for not being a size 2 — I fluctuate between a size 6 and a size 8.

I’m able to actually look in the mirror without tearing myself apart.  I’m happy to exercise and eat well because it feels good, not because I have to in order to be perfect. Feeling free from constantly body-shaming myself is a whole new world.

 PollyAnna Brown is a communication expert, journalist, and ghostwriter using her 15+ years of experience in entertainment and psychology to help business owners and entrepreneurs grow their audience, impact, and sales. You can learn more here. Read the original article on Insider.