As luck would have it, I am right smack in the midst of a very delicious vaction right smack in the middle of Fat Talk Free Week.

I'm not even joking.

Fat Talk Free Week.

Based on a program piloted in San Antonio's Trinity University (go tigers!), Fat Talk Free Week is an annual anti-fat-talk campaign that aims to help girls feel better about their bodies and to help them gain a more positive body image.

One of the things the campaign asks you to do is to stand in front of a mirror, wearing something that you're comfortable in, and write only positive things down on a sheet of paper.

I'm not gonna lie. The exercise was hard. When I looked in the mirror, I had to look past all the sun spots from when I was a lifegaurd and never wore an ounce of sunblock (lesson learned the hard way).

I had to look past the roundness of my face – not the roundness that's inherent with being of Asian decent, but the roundness that comes from excess cellulite, remnants of my pregnancy where I gained over 70 pounds.

I had to look past a whole list of other stuff (which, in the spirit of Fat Talk Free Week and quite simply just to save a little bit of my ego) I will not go on to name.

I think I made the campaign's case and point in my exercise alone. It's hard for a woman to stand in front of the mirror and find any saving graces at first glance . . . we're all too quick to point out what's not right about our bodies.

But when we look past all that stuff that we're dissapointed about, what we find is ourselves.

Yeah. I quickly wrote down some of my more positive physical attributes . . . but as I continued to look at myself in the mirror, I began to see my SELF.

I saw . . .

a girl who is passionate about adventure . . .
a girl who has a lot of love within her heart and tries to share it with the world . . .
a girl who is strong. who perserveres. who is on the cutting edge.
a girl who is compassionate. who advocates for the underserved.
a girl who strives to learn more every day. who looks for lessons in every person she meets.
who tries not to judge and tries her best to find the goodness in every one.
a girl who is sensitive, quiet and shy.
a girl who is smart, outgoing and daring.

I saw the person that I'd like for people to see when they first see me. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Who do you see?