I Would Surrender My Being

If I'm Cooking Dinner For My Hubby Or Designing A Line Or Selling On Qvc, I Try To Do It In An Authentic Way. To Speak To People Like I Want To Be Spoken To, To Be A Voice For People Who Don't Have One And To Give Them Things They Need And Love.

I Live In A World Where There's Magazines And Blogs, And People Feel Like They Are Allowed To Criticize Me, And In The Meanest Way.

It's Important To Me, No Matter What Size I Am Or Weight I Am, To Feel Beautiful. Even At My Biggest I Was Rocking Body Con Dresses And You Couldn't Tell Me Twice. That's What I Think Good American Is. It's About Women Of Individuality And Diversity, But Also About Being Comfortable In Yourself. That's What We're Trying To Promote. It's Not About Fitting Into A Size Two And That's What Makes You Beautiful. I Just Want People To Be Healthy And Love Who They Are And Be In Control Of Your Life. But That Doesn't Mean You Have To Be A Size Six.

Having Someone In Your Class Call You Fat, Ugly, Too Tall And So On, You Start To Think All Those Things About Yourself. And If You're Like Me, Those Words Are Played On Repeat Inside Your Head. When I Was At Home, I Felt Loved And Safe. My Sisters Were Always A Safe Haven For Me. I Knew They Would Always Play With Me And Make Me Feel Like I Was One Of Them. Now We Have So Many More Social Outlets, There Are So Many Ways To Be Stalked And Bullied. If Social Media Is Too Much For You To Handle Then Don't Have A Twitter Or Facebook Account, Just Be Yourself. Be Who You Want To Be.

My Father Raised Us Like … We Were Not Allowed To See People In Any Sort Of Colors, But Also We Were Not Allowed To Call People Fat. If Ever We Were To Say, ‘oh That Fat Person, Or This Person,’ He Would Make Us Put A Bar Of Soap In Our Mouth And Count To 10. We Weren’t Allowed To Look At People Like That.