At the beginning I suppose.... wait, no one wants me to go back that far! Lets see if I can get my 52 years into a short story version for everyone. Yeah, like many of you I have struggled with my weight 'my entire life' as they say... It started with a 'family diet' when I was 8. I had no clue about diets or body image or anything of the sort at that point. And if you think about it, what 8 year old should be concerned with such stuff. My well meaning parents decided it was time for them to lose a few middle aged pounds and that the entire family could benefit from healthier eating. I am pretty sure this was true. However, what might have been wiser was just to feed us differently vs. having a well intended family meeting... For me, this was a pivotal point in my body image. I remember wondering if I were fat... if I should look different than I did? I also learned there were good foods and bad foods. And when you eat the bad foods you are being bad... And that the bad foods were a treat!
Flash forward about 10 years and here I am at 18... and after a zillion more diets, I am now weighing about 222 lbs. I am the poster child for "diets make you fat".... At 18 I left home. And my life changed! And the pounds just fell off... I didn't even try to lose weight, and they fell off!! I was at the store one day with my bother and sis-in-law... saw one of those scales where you stick a nickel in it and it gives you your fortune and your weight (I wonder whose idea THAT was! LOL!). I started crying! And freaking out! Sure enough, here comes my bro and sis-in-law wondering what the heck had happened!? All could do was point at the number! I weighed 152 pounds! (I am I5'10" so that was pretty darn thin for me!!) I knew I had lost weight, but I had NO CLUE it was so much! And this all happened in the span of about 4 months. No diet, just grew up, had to work and feed myself. Food was just something I did when I was hungry, it was no longer my source of entertainment and obsession. Had the next big event not have happened, I am pretty confident I would have I stayed at a healthy weight for many years to come, possibly for the rest of my life... But another event happened, and this was not meant to be. You see, it was around this time I met my 1st husband and the father of my two oldest boys. I recently figured out that this was most likely a turning point for me. My husband was an alcoholic and abusive. Some physical abuse, but what was worse was the years (16 of them) of emotional abuse. I kept off most of the weight for 3 or so years even thru the drinking and getting smacked around on occasion. But then I became pregnant. I gained 70+ pounds during this 9 months. I for years thought it was because I quit smoking, But in reality it was because I was bringing a child into a world and family that was unhealthy. I stressed over this to the point I reverted back to the one thing I knew from my childhood as a comfort. Food. I could not tell my family how bad things were. I didn't want to put them thru that... so, I kept it all inside. And stuffed all those emotions with food. I did this for 16 years and the birth of 2 children. In the end, when I finally kicked his sorry ass out, I weighed around 350 lbs. I will finish off my history piece on the next post :)
