Victoria's Secret Model Bridget Malcolm Says She's Been At 'War' With Her Body

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One Victoria’s Secret model is speaking out about her experience with body image—and it’s not what you’d think.

Bridget Malcolm, who has also modelled for Polo Ralph Lauren and V Magazine, shared in a revealing Instagram post that she’s been “at war” with her body.

“This girl is not fat,” she wrote next to a photo of herself in a bikini. “I remember around when this photo was taken, I had been told that I needed to lose weight. Not for the first time and not for the last time."

This girl is not fat. I remember around when this photo was taken, I had been told that I needed to lose weight. Not for the first time and not for the last time. Always fun trying to act like you're confident and happy in swimwear when you're at war with your body...

Bridget also wrote a post on her blog where she dived deeper into her body image issues.

She wrote that in August, "I threw away my scales, my measuring tape and my body checking." She said she also got rid of all of her clothes from when she was at her smallest size, and deleted her gym selfies and "progress shots."

"Basically, I wanted no point of reference any more of a time when I was smaller, or larger. I just wanted to stop looking in mirrors and telling myself that I was ‘too fat,’ and ‘not doing enough.’”

She says she also started eating more healthily and stopped allowing herself to feel guilty about what she ate or how she worked out.

Bridget says becoming more body-positive was “insanely hard to do,” given that she was trying to undo 12 years of being told she needed to lose weight.

Help! (First world problem time.) Had bangs for two weeks. Don't own a hairbrush (this is the level of hair maintenance I engage in). Should I grow them out? Or learn to style them...

"I cannot tell you how many times I went to bed with my head whirling–trying to get me to latch onto how much I ate at dinner, or during the day, or trying to convince myself to change my diet, start training hard again, start tracking my size, just start doing more. It felt like two steps forward, one and three quarters step back."

But now, she says, she’s done with negative body talk. She orders what she wants at dinner and tries to avoid looking in the mirror.

The best part, according to Bridget:

"I have gained weight. And I do not give a f*ck about it. My life is so much more than my jean size. And every day when that voice in my head tries to tell me I am worthless, it gets a little easier to shut it down. I am setting myself free slowly."

Fans flooded Bridget's Instagram post with support, thanking her for her honesty and sharing their own stories with body-shaming.

In a follow-up post, Bridget thanked fans for their support. "I am completely overwhelmed by all your love," she wrote. She promised to write more about body image soon.

To everyone who has supported me in my decision to be honest about my body struggles, thank you. I am completely overwhelmed by all your love - and I try to respond to all your messages. I will be writing about my experiences in this arena on my blog regularly - stay tuned ❤️ I've had enough. Today make the choice to love the body you inhabit, and take back your strength, because you are always enough. This photo was taken at the end of being in 8 different countries in three weeks (two trips to aus from Europe included) All that travel had me gaining weight and I was so anxious about it. Luckily the shoot was easy, loving and fun - but I cried myself to sleep that night, I was so terrified at going back to NYC "fat" and having to face my clients and agency. Ridiculous.

"Today make the choice to love the body you inhabit," she wrote, "and take back your strength, because you are always enough."

Amen, sister.

This article originally appeared on Women's Health US