Carre Otis

“I delight in my family obligations, but they leave little time for breaks let alone quick trips across the country.”

“The pressure was if I didn't get into that dress size someone else would - someone else would get the job.”

“My doctor felt that the main contributing factor was so many years of malnutrition, especially during my formative years, even before I got into modeling.”

“It not unusual for women with anorexia to suffer heart attacks.”

“My own path towards wellness has been a long and dynamic one. It's taught me that healing from the inside out takes time and there can be great value in various sources of guidance.”

“My weight fluctuated when I was 30, and I did the unthinkable - I stepped out as a plus-sized model.”

“My parents were both from the East and had moved to San Francisco only so my father could go to law school there.”

“I've learned to surround myself with women who lift me up and leave me feeling nurtured rather than drained.”

“Many women who have anorexia put their hearts in a compromised situation.”

“I didn't know what to do with calories.”

“I was born in 1968, just eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad passed the bar exam.”

“I had my first seizure, and I had to go in for heart surgery.”

“While women across the globe have many differences - language, culture, environment - our similarities are undeniable, and the impact of abuse and oppression affects us all.”

“Eating disorders, body dysmorphia and a general dissatisfaction with one's life and body seems to ail too many young people.”

“Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.”

“Part of treatment for drugs and alcohol is you abstain from these, but with eating disorders you can't abstain from food so the treatment is longer than drugs and alcohol.”

“Though my parents assured me over and over again that I wasn't stupid or slow, I sensed that my dyslexia was now a stigma on all of us.”

“But life inevitably throws us curve balls, unexpected circumstances that remind us to expect the unexpected. I've come to understand these curve balls are the beautiful unfolding of both karma and current.”

“But I would assert that despite the wide variety of yoga options and individual preferences, there is one universal element: the union of consciousness and movement, breath and awareness.”

“I bicycle 12,000-foot mountain passes, run, cross train, skate-ski, hike and mountain bike.”