Jess Weiner and I, as well as countless others have a lot in common. We have recovered from eating disorders, we have a history of poor self esteem, body shame, broken diets, weight loss failures, obesity, and we have somehow crawled out of that deep dark canyon alive into a place bigger actually than mere self-acceptance. We have actually made it all the way to self loving! And it is in this place of self loving that we find ourselves in the uncomfortable reality of facing health issues due to our weight. I loved it when Jess Weiner wrote in a recent Glamour Magazine piece, “Did loving my body almost kill me?”

I am about to leave for the first of several retreats (raw foods, vegetarian and juciing), in an attempt to love my body into saving me. Like Jess – I have found myself in a health crisis. After a 22 city book tour across the country – I returned fatter then I had been in a while and I was actually choking in my sleep. The cause was GERD or gastric reflux. I was suffering in a way that I had never suffered before. Eating had become challenging and sleeping nearly impossible.

I made the round of specialists and I kept hearing the same thing over and over again. Their tool box of what they could do for me was actually very small. The best thing that I could do for myself was to lose fifty pounds and take the pressure literally off my stomach.

I felt like a fraud. Here I was out there telling women to “ditch the diet” and I was going to go on one? Really? I had spent a decade learning to celebrate and feel sexy in my own skin just as I was and now I was going to change? It was like some kind of bad joke ending to my story.

When I started to talk about loving myself enough to save my life by losing weight – I got some push back. Some of my friends and fans felt that I was going to commit “brand suicide”. But wasn't brand suicide better than real life suicide? Besides, I could lose what I needed to lose and not lose my curves. Why did this have to be about me rejecting my body?  I didn't feel like I was rejecting my shape - in fact I just wanted to stay alive long enough to enjoy my body for years to come.

I did a lot of walking trying to figure out what I was going to do. Would I keep this a secret? Or was there a way – just like Jess Weiner was trying to find - of switching up the weight loss message so that it made sense to the women that we had fought hard to become.

I could love myself just as I was – curves and all – and still need to lose weight for my health. I could approach this entire enterprise of weight loss through a perspective that I never had before. I wasn't waiting for my life to begin in five pounds. I was living it large and fabulously right now – and I wanted to continue to have the pleasure that I finally found for years to come. I could love myself enough to change the way I was living so that I could live bigger and better. I could love myself enough to save my life.

A new television series is about to premiere. It is called Big Sexy about plus size models. I am going to celebrate that – and Hips and Curves a fabulous plus size lingerie company – and Lane Bryant's new image of hot sexy clothing for curvy women. And I am going to lose some weight so that I can continue to be a strong, healthy, sexy, curvy woman who advocates for other women to love themselves just as they are. And sometimes that does include drinking green juice and taking a hike!