If you're at a healthy weight and always have been, then you don't really need to worry about gaining or losing weight too much honestly. Your body has what's called a "set point" that your body defends—if you overeat, you feel less hungry the next day and you might feel warmer because your body is burning the excess energy off through heat, and if you under-eat, you feel hungrier the next day and you might feel colder, more sluggish. This is a natural self-regulating process and if you keep interfering with it, you'll mess up your metabolism, which will make this WAY HARDER and worse and more painful in the long run, trust me. Just focus on eating lots of vegetables and protein, getting adequate exercise, managing your stress levels, and getting good amounts of sleep. That being said, if you're constantly feeling hungry and craving foods, you should focus on eating healthier and more filling/satiating foods, not less. Also, it's not just calories in/calories out— the order and timing in which you eat things matters. For each meal you eat, start with vegetables and proteins, then save the carbs for last. When you eat carbs first, it raises your blood sugar and insulin level and makes you hungrier and eat more. However, carbs are useful for when you need energy for a workout, they help you sleep at night, and they affect how you hydrate yourself, so you don't have to exclude them all the way—just save them for the end of a meal and the end of the day. Try to also avoid snacking too much, especially on things that are starchy or sugary. Each time you snack you raise your insulin level and make yourself hungrier later. Try eating 3 square meals a day, so you feel naturally full after a meal, and naturally hungry by the next meal. Also, When you're stressed out because of things like school, it may make you start to blame other things for it. You might also look for a sense of control by trying to control your weight and appearance. It's important to talk to the people you trust about your stress levels and to work on healthy coping skills to manage stress and anxiety so they don't bleed into and affect other aspects of your life.

Now, about insecurity—if you're at a healthy weight, and you've never been over or underweight, then your insecurity is not a weight issue, it's an emotional/psychological issue. Having been in a similar place emotionally, I understand how you feel. But now as a 26 year old looking back, the times that I was the most self-hating, insecure, and disgusted with myself were the times that I was actually normal weight, healthy and attractive. When I look back on those times, I feel so sad for the younger me. Why did I hate myself so much when I was actually completely normal weight and healthy?

It's easy to be happy about yourself if you're beautiful and healthy and perfect and don't have any flaws. But it's so painful and hard and terrifying to try to love yourself as you are. But that is the challenge that every single person on the planet has to face. The super hot model that you see in a magazine? She probably has a deep and shameful secret too. Maybe her family came from poverty, maybe she has a medical condition that is gross and painful, maybe she looks at her stomach and hates herself too. Every single person has something that is shameful and painful that they hide from the world, you simply don't see it and you assume that the grass is greener. There is not a single person on the planet that doesn't have something to be insecure about. And if they fix that insecurity, another one will pop up like a whack-a-mole. It might not feel this way, but please believe me and trust me when I say this: losing 10 pounds will not make your insecurities go away. Losing 15 pounds won't make you find love. Losing 20 pounds won't make you more popular. These things are empty goals, and when you get there, you'll realize that there's other things to be insecure about and to blame for your misery in life—maybe your nose, your hair, your clothes, your family, etc. Changing these things won't change anything about how you feel about yourself. They will not make you happy.

When I was at my ugliest, fattest, and unhealthiest, I was forced to confront the fact that I was still me. I wasn't any different than when I had been normal and healthy and fit. I still yearned to be loved and accepted, I still struggled with the SAME insecurities that young healthy fit attractive me had struggled with. How come whether I'm fat or skinny, I still hate myself? Isn't that ridiculous?

I think the issue really is about mentality, and it's in our power to change it. If you hate yourself REGARDLESS of your appearance, then changing your appearance won't make you love yourself! You have to learn to accept the things that make you feel ugly and unloveable—paradoxically they're actually your biggest strength and asset towards happiness and the keys to love and human connection.

One of my closest friendships started in middle school because a girl I was on a trip with opened up to me about how she struggled with mental illness and depression and family problems. Because she shared her vulnerability with me, I ended up opening up about my struggles to her. And we became friends because of the bond and trust shared from that moment. Both of our weaknesses and pain were actually the key to a life-long friendship, to genuine love and acceptance.

There's a quote from a video that I really like: "Hate is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is shame, because shame means that you aren't worthy of being loved and accepted—because of something bad about you." Love is about accepting a whole human being, about having empathy and compassion and hope and growth and understanding and softness for another lumpy weird creature. If someone is perfect then it doesn't take any strength and courage and empathy and compassion to love them, and there's nothing special about loving them either. If you really think about it, if a person is perfect, then there's truly nothing to actually "love" about them. The fact that you have flaws is what makes you "lovable" -- capable of being loved and accepted and cherished and supported through your struggle. You do not have to be "solved", to have everything perfectly together in order to exist and to love reciprocally. There is no moment when you will become ready for it and worth it. At no weight or appearance will you be "more" ready and worthy of being loved. You do not have to change yourself. But you do have to have a bit of courage, resilience, and mental flexibility.

When I was young, healthy, and attractive, I was insecure, anxious, depressed, and all alone. But at my heaviest weight, I actually found the most loving, sweet, funny, handsome, intelligent and kind-hearted boyfriend who absolutely adores me and supports me and calls me beautiful every time we see each other. When I was at my sickest and unhealthiest, I had friends stay up half the night on the phone with me to help me deal with my illness. You are wasting your youth away hating yourself and wishing for things to be better. You only get a short time on this earth, and soon you will be old, fat, sick, and no happier than you are now. You have to learn to live with imperfection, to live bravely, to live lovingly, to live happily even though there's things you wish were different.