I have always thought if I got back to a smaller dress size again I would feel better. I have a couple of times and still felt the same. Now put weight on again, and need to lose it really, but I have decided to go about it the opposite way. Instead of "fixing" my body to make my mind feel better, I am "fixing" my kind to make my body better.
I try and move my body and stretch. Enjoy the Things my body can do (instead of worrying about what it can't). I try and be kind to myself and push myself a little but not too much in the right direction. I try not to binge on unhappy feelings and let myself feel them instead. It had been years since I had cried properly, instead I would eat a still partly frozen cheese cake or order a couple of pizzas. I eat pizza and cheese cake but I also eat salad and nuts and whole grains and fruit. I am trying not to read packets or count calories. I try and find alternative rewards to food. A hot bath, curling up on the sofa in front of a film or with a book or magazine, going for a walk in the sunshine, singing in the shower, treating myself to some new home ware. When I think to myself "yeah, but I'm fat" I correct myself "yes you have some weight to lose eventfully, but you are also brave and funny and kind and strong and interesting and beautiful, what's a bit of padding?" It helps me to imagine that it is my cocoon, I am working on becoming a butterfly but I need the extra weight to turn into the person I am going to become. Likely it will be the last thing to go, once all my other ducks are in a row.
I have also got to know my body better. I put on some colourful clothes that fit, do my hair and makeup, do my nails, put on some fake tan and shave my legs regardless of the weight I am. But more than that I take the time to have a good skin care routine and do pedicures and face packs and all those things I used to think were for thin people. While rubbing in my lotions and potions, I thank my body for the job it does. And I find something to complement myself on, even if it's just a pair of earrings I've put on or something, I find something to feel happy about in the way I look.
I hope you find a way to love yourself and your body. I struggle sometimes to live with an attitude or gratitude and not dwell in an emotional cave of self pity. I have to work on it actively and constantly. My first job was to climb out of the black pit of depression (which took medication) but the second was to start to change my internal language and start to change the way I viewed the world, and myself both internally and externally. Believe it or not, sometimes I forget how I'm fat! I just forget about it. I'm busy thinking about all the other wonderful threads in the tapestry we call life. I put on my smile and keep striving to be a better version of myself everyday.
Maybe I will emerge as a beautiful butterfly, maybe I'll always be a very hungry caterpillar, I would rather be a happy caterpillar than a miserable butterfly and I have been both ends of the weight spectrum more than once