Today, she exercises three mornings a week and recently took up boxing. Graham has been working up a serious sweat ever since. "I had to realize that if I didn't really love who I was and if I couldn't appreciate this-my body-as my moneymaker, then I wasn't going to make any money." She began to see self-approval as key to success. "But it didn't happen overnight." While Graham's motivation to love herself at any size was pure, it also ended up being pragmatic: Her dad, a business consultant, had long advised her to approach modeling as an entrepreneur. So I decided to break that cycle," she says. "We've been taught to say negative things to ourselves-to pinch our fat and be like, 'One day it'll leave.' To say 'Sorry' when someone bumps into us. I was looking in the mirror, crying, and I started just saying, 'I love you.' " From that day on, she made a conscious effort to speak to herself positively. You have to work through this.' " But only after hitting emotional rock bottom did Graham begin to build herself back up. You're there for a purpose,' " recalls Graham. Like, Oh, I'm not pretty or skinny enough for men."Īt her lowest point, Graham called her mom in tears, planning to quit modeling and move home to Nebraska. "I didn't know to get out then because I was so insecure." When a different boyfriend dumped her, "He said, 'I'm afraid you're going to be as fat as my mom.' " The now oft-quoted remark, Graham says, "was the start of how I began to look at my body and relate it to men. "He never hit me, but he did throw me up against a wall," she says of the ex. "I thought I could feel appreciated in my body through guys." Graham speaks openly about being in an abusive relationship during this period. "I dated all the wrong men," Graham says. Her splintering self-esteem propelled her through a series of toxic romances. "I'm looking at my cellulite and my back fat and thinking, I have to go shoot lingerie tomorrow and smile, and I am heinous. Within a year of moving to New York, "I looked at myself in the mirror and said, 'I hate you. I didn't understand the health aspect of it." The former high school basketball and volleyball player stopped exercising, losing her tone and definition. "It was a dark place." At the time, Graham couldn't see herself as beautiful at a size 18, but more than that, "It was the way that I was treating my body. "I went from a size 12 to a size 18," she says, trying to keep up with the constant partying and networking that seemed effortless to the other models and agents around her. "All of a sudden, Mom wasn't cooking for me Mom wasn't there being like, 'Lets go work out!' " Her confidence plummeted, and so did the control she felt over her body. Then, all of a sudden, people were like, 'You're gorgeous.' And I was like, 'What?!' "īut nothing stuck. Never the smartest, because I have dyslexia. I was never the prettiest, never the skinniest, never the fastest in my sports. ![]() "Confidence starts at home," says Graham, "and something my mother never did was look in the mirror and say she was ugly or fat." Still, she was hardly immune to teenage struggles. "But it was automatic because plus starts at size 8." That's not to say she was insecure about the term. "The agency didn't say plus-size right away. Graham was scouted at a mall in her hometown at age 12, already 5 feet 9 inches and a size 12. But it took 16 years of hustling while agents repeatedly urged her to stay in the plus-size lane, rather than aim for high fashion and Hollywood. ![]() "I'm still pinching myself, like, Oh my God, this actually happened to me?" she says of her multifaceted fame. In fact, her current level of success astounds her. LED ZEPPELIN Over The Hills And Far AwayĦ7.She didn't start her career expecting to reshape the national conversation around women's bodies, though. BLUE OYSTER CULT - Don't Fear The Reaperĥ3. OZZY OSBOURNE - "Mama, I'm Coming Home"ģ6. QUEEN - We Will Rock You/We Are The ChampionsĢ4. PINK FLOYD - Another Brick In The Wall(Pt II)ġ1. Here's the full list for anyone who wants to see where their favorite song wound up on the ultimate list.ģ. The countdown also coincided with the 45th anniversary of the first time WPDH signed on the air as a rock station in the Hudson Valley. This Memorial Day Weekend, the Home of Rock and Roll conducted its annual countdown of the top 500 songs of all time.
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