My fat story
Fat has been a part of my life for as long I can remember. My mother was an overweight child, teen and young adult who lost her weight in her mid-20s. Acting in my best interest, as soon as I started putting on weight at the onset of puberty (circa 8-years-old), I was put on my first “diet.” I felt guilty and bad about eating. I snuck food. I went to friends’ houses because I knew their parents had junk food. The message my whole young life was that I was in for a world of pain if I remained fat — especially when it came to dating. My mom was right, for what it’s worth, but the messaging gave me a really unrealistic idea of weight loss, and didn’t help me address my food issues and behaviors.
I weighed 125 lbs when I was 8. I went up to 145 at age 12. By age 14, I was approximately 180 pounds. I joined Weight Watchers, and over the course of a year lost 25 pounds, getting down to about 165-170. Freshman year of college, I gained 25 pounds, which began the cycle of yo-yo dieting — each year of college I gained 20-25 lbs, most of which I took off during the summer, only to put back on again. By my mid-20s, though, I was firmly sitting at about 200. I rejoined Weight Watchers, took off 10-15 pounds, but then slowly put it back on (whilst still attending Weight Watchers). In my last, stressful job where a floor-to-ceiling “snack closet” was present for my 12-15 hour work days during the summer, I put on a further 25-30 pounds.While attending a Weight Watchers at work meeting (depressing, right?!).
As of January 2011, I am 60-80 pounds overweight (with a bit of wiggle room to lose between 60-80 to be healthy). In October 2010, I moved to Los Angeles, the land of Beautiful and Fit People and decided it was time to make a permanent change. Despite my lack of success on the scale in recent years, steadily attending Weight Watchers meetings DID help me begin the process of working through my food issues. With many of my attitudes and triggers readjusted, I started my latest and final journey in January 2011, to combine fitness, healthy eating and a better mental outlook to reach success.
