So, I wish that I could explain to you simply how I ended up where I am now. Of course, the simplest explanation is eating too much of the wrong foods, but there's a much longer story here. I was a very fit 5'5", 135 lbs all the way through high school. I ran indoor and outdoor track and played tennis. My mom who had always been really small made me feel like I was really overweight and I was super self conscious of my body. My mom is 5'2" and weighed 105 lbs until after her 3rd child. I grew up in a family where we didn't express our emotions, where a child was "to be seen, not heard". I think this is largely what came back to bite me in the butt, or expand my butt in the future. I married at 19 because I was "in love" and thought it was what I was supposed to do. After all, good girls waited to have sex and absolutely didn't live with anyone before getting married. Unfortunately, I saw the good in everyone, and too much good in my ex. It turned out he was an alcoholic (what did I know, I didn't drink). He was a sloppy drunk, a mean drunk, and didn't know how to contribute to a household or finances, or any aspect of the relationship. We stayed together for 2 1/2 years through his ups and downs, throwing furniture, punching holes in walls, separating me from my family, and tearing me apart one comment at a time, until the night he grabbed me by both arms, shaking me like a ragdoll. I covered the bruises on my arms and sent him packing the next morning. His last words to me were that I was a "f***ing b**ch". I still loved him enough to offer and let him come back, and he said he was coming. I waited all day for him to show up. He didn't even bother to call. I called him and he said he wasn't coming. During those couple of years, and the couple after, I gained to 190 lbs. My mom said she didn't hardly recognize me at one visit where I had put on so much weight. It took me a year to get my head on straight, but I read a book called "Protein Power" by Michael and Mary Dan Eades. I started following their eating plan, working out and returned to 150 lbs. I was a pretty solid 150, wearing a size 10 and was happy with my size and health. During college, my weight went back up, so after graduation i joined weight watchers and puked it back down again to about 155. By the time i got married 3 years later, I was back up to 175. I continued yo yoing. As my depression would get worse, I would gain weight. I maxed out in 2009 at 255 lbs before talking to my doc and going on prescription appetite suppressants. 2 months later, I was pregnant with the child I was told I couldn't have. I watched my weight through pregnancy but still went up to 282 before delivering. However, after having my daughter, I quickly dropped to 240. By watching calories and using myfitnesspal, I dropped to 210. I felt better than I had in years. We tried for another baby and quickly became pregnant. Unfortunately that pregnancy ended in miscarriage and my inability to deal with my emotions caused me to spin into a binging frenzy. I found myself pregnant again just 2 weeks after my miscarriage and ate my way back up to 278 by the time daughter #2 delivered. I expected my weight to fall off again but it didn't. A combination of stress from multiple life changing events and an inability to deal left me at my heaviest non pregnancy weight of 267 lbs. I joined weight watchers and over 6 weeks lost 5 lbs. I was eating a lot more processed foods and felt hungry all the time. I knew pretty quickly it wasn't the path for me. I quit weight watchers and I immediately put back on 3 of the lbs I had lost. I started trying to make small changes on my own, drinking more water, going for short walks without judgment about my distance. I started looking for solutions again. There are those out there who will understand my years of struggle with my weight, and those that will wonder why I didn't just stop eating so much. There are many reasons, I'm an emotional eater, a stress eater, I am a food addict, I just really like "bad" foods. But I am trying, and as long as there is progress, no matter how slow, it counts.
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