Jessica Weiner, author of 'Do I look Fat in This? Life Doesn't Begin Five Pounds From Now', recently spoke with AOL's Book Maven Bethanne Patrick. Here are excerpts of that interview:

Bethanne Patrick:The first thing I want to ask you is about your subtitle, 'Life Doesn't Begin Five Pounds From Now.' What do you mean by that?

Jessica Weiner: I know so many women who say, 'Oh my gosh, my life would be great when I lose five pounds, or when I get a new car, or a different husband, or a better job' or whatever -- they kind of put out there that that equals their happiness.

Bethanne Patrick: Why do women focus on those 5, 10 or 50 pounds so much?

Jessica Weiner: I think on a deeper level, we hold onto the weight, or the number on the scale or the size of the pair of pants that we want to be, because it is a control and fear issue. It is something that we are not fully acknowledging in our lives; the fact that we are more than what we weigh; we are more than what we wear. I think it takes a lot of strength and bravery to stand up and say, 'I'm going to love the skin I'm in, whether I'm a size 2, 12, or 22.'

Bethanne Patrick: I want to come back to something that you just said: it's about control. I think that is something that many women and girls forget: that they are trying to control something, when many other things in their life may feel out of control. That's particularly true in adolescent teenage girls.

Jessica Weiner: Absolutely. I use to get bullied when I was a little girl. First of all, I have a last name of 'Weiner' and I'm a girl. That was a character-building last name. I was teased a lot. I got picked on. I remember not being able to control what other girls were going to think about me, but I could control what I ate, how much I exercised, what my body looked like and I kind of channeled all of my aggression, anxiety and fear into my body image and my self-image. It can become a very dangerous cocktail for young girls. And for young guys -- we are seeing this issue affect boys as well.

Bethanne Patrick: As you said, it's a vicious cocktail and it can be a vicious cycle. It's about being out of control, but you say that [fat] is not a feeling. Can you discuss that a bit?

Jessica Weiner: I think every woman out there is going to say, 'What! Of course that's a feeling. I say that 100 times a day.' But if you think about it, 'fat' is not an emotion. It is not a real feeling. It has become this code word that women use to describe a lot of different feelings. Whether it's, 'I'm mad, I'm upset, I'm nervous, I'm anxious,' all of that can sometimes mean fat -- even happy. I remember getting really excited to go out on a date and turning to my best friend and saying, 'Oh my god, do I look fat?' And I remember thinking, 'Why am I going there? I'm actually in a good mood.' But it just becomes this catch-all word that women use to describe what they are really feeling. One of the reasons I wrote the book is to get women to look at their language.

Bethanne Patrick: You have alluded to your own struggles with diet and body image. How did you break the cycle of overeating and dieting? And how did you come to accept your body and who you are today?

Jessica Weiner: I found a lot of inspiration in group therapy. I am a big fan of therapy in general, but I am specifically a fan of group therapy because I found it very helpful to hear other women's stories. I sat in a room for many years with eight other women who looked like every woman out there who I thought didn't have a problem. They were all different shapes and all different sizes -- and looking at them or passing them on the street, you'd have never thought they were struggling with the same issues. I found a lot of solidarity and connection. I think with the help of other women and the help of a good therapist, I started to break down my belief system.

I asked myself: What were the thoughts that I was thinking every day, because those thoughts were affecting my language. My language was affecting the actions that I was taking. So, I looked at my life in those three parts: What am I thinking? What I am speaking? And what am I doing?