I cut out negative influences and voices in my life, like fashion magazines (back in the 2000's, they were truly full of stick-thin models) and my mother (not as a whole; I just stopped listening to her fatphobic rhetoric). No therapy.

Additionally, I gained some perspective after I got to uni. I went to a super Asian high school and so most of my friends were size 0 Asian girls while I was... gasp... a size 4, so obviously a cow. After I got to uni, I became friends with people with more diverse body types and learned that being a size 4 is actually very thin in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, I went through a period where I got sick and actually dropped down to that size 0 range... and basically nothing changed for the "better" except maybe the sales associates at Aritzia gushed over my arms more, I guess. Mostly, I got a lot of concern-trolling about needing to eat a sandwich and early onset osteoporosis or whatever. I wasn't anymore beautiful (maybe by subsets of the female gaze, but men paid less attention), or confident, or cool, or whatever. I had always, as a teenager, fantasised about being super thin - but once it became a reality, I truly felt like, "So what?" It was incredibly underwhelming.

I still care about my dress size, mind you, it's just I care so much more about my health and function at this point. Sometime throughout my twenties I think I just stopped feeling like I owed it to the world to be ~beautiful~ more generally, and started investing much more in my skillset and strength of character instead.

I do like to look presentable, and still find fashion and beauty fun, but I'm a long ways of feeling desperate to fit into conventional beauty ideals. At some point, you realise it's all a trap designed to keep you hungry, anxious, shallow, insecure, and stagnant. Realising that was very good motivation to snap out of my body-hating funk.