Since I was a young child I have always been on the heavy side. I have had to face being called ugly, fat, and much worse from peers and family. I didn't mind my peers calling me names cause that's just what immature children do but what hurt me the most is the insults I received from my family. Today, I am 5 foot 7 inches, weigh almost 200 lbs, and I'm 21 years old. Sometimes I go days without eating, sometimes weeks, because I have the idea of me eating knowing that I am already fat enough. I wear a size 13-14 and I just hate that so much. I use to wear a size 22 but from previous attempts of starving myself, that's why I now wear a size 13-14. I have a man who loves me and I asks him constantly if he sees me as ugly and he always says that I am beautiful. But my question is how do I stop listening to what my family says (by the way all of them are on the plus size too) and believe in my own heart, mind, and soul that I am as beautiful as my man say and more. I hate feeling this way, I want to be able to get out the shower and actually stand to look at myself in the mirror without having to hide all this fat with a towel. I truly hate feeling like this... how can I see myself as beautiful?

I want to remind you that you have to eat. If you starve yourself, your metabolism slows down and your body tries to reduce the number of calories it burns, and you'll actually gain weight. Your Basal Metabolic Rate represents the amount of calories per day your body burns, regardless of exercise. Your BMR is probably around 1700 calories. You have to eat around that much every day just as a part of being alive. You can vary that number depending on how active you are and if you are doing regular exercise, but you have to eat.

About your self-image... You are looking for your fat. You are focused on it and when you look in the mirror, you're looking for it. You have also taken those external messages and internalized them to mean you are not beautiful, and then extrapolated that to mean you aren't loveable.

Take a very logical and rational approach to answering these questions:

Do you believe that being “fat” automatically equals being ugly?

Are the women you know or have seen that are “fat”, but that you think are beautiful?

Do you believe your value as a person is tied to how beautiful you are?

If you believe “fat” automatically equals “ugly”, you're simply wrong. There are plenty of women out these that are larger (i.e. fat) and are stunningly beautiful. If you've never seen even one, open your eyes!

If you believe only beautiful people deserve to be loved or have value as people, you're simply wrong. This is the “judging a book by its' cover” mentality. Any guy can tell you that they know more than a few women that are model-esque beautiful, but that are absolutely ugly on the inside.

So to see yourself as beautiful, you need to untangle facts (logically thought out) from your emotions (irrational beliefs).

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Some may see you ugly, but others will see you as beautiful. It doesn't always count that beauty is from outside but it is from within. Be kind always to everyone even those who opposes and insults you and by the time you knew it, everybody admires you so well.

Hi I had the same problem like you but I learnt one thing in life ,you need to believe in yourself and trust yourself . If the one person in your life,who love you so much finds you beautiful .who cares what other people think .when you look in that mirror ,tell yourself all the time I am beautiful and no one can take that away from me . Believe that's all