If that sounds like the beginning of an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, it kind of is. I know that the Internet never dies, and things you put out into the blogosphere will eventually find its way to somebody, some stranger across the country or on the other side of the globe, but I am putting myself out there, a tiny bit. I'm creating this blog to document a change that has been a long time coming. And for the first time in 25 years, I am seeing positive results from how I am choosing to eat.
I will probably share more of my story as I go along, probably in a way to work through some of the emotions that are still tied up in food, but right now I want to share where I am more than where I've been.
I have always struggled with my weight and body issues. I look back on pictures of myself as a girl and realize that I was not fat or overweight. I looked perfectly normal. I didn't feel normal. I felt bloated and huge and tall. Some of that came from outside sources, like the bully who tortured me from 3rd grade through most of high school. Some of it came from my friends, especially my two closest friends for several years, who were shorter than I and could fit in each other's clothes. Some of it came because I as I went through puberty it became obvious that my breasts would be kind of on the larger size. I began dressing in jackets and sweaters (even in the summer!), anything baggy to hide my body.
I didn't like my body and didn't want to look at it. And I didn't want anyone else to look at it either. I conveniently forgot that the food I put in my mouth had anything to do with how I looked.
So fast forward to today. I am middle aged, a busy mom to 5 kids and a wife to a sweet husband who has health issues of his own. I was tired and run down, desperate and depressed, the heaviest I have ever weighed, topping out at 330 lbs. I had cycled through attempts to lose weight, to regain control of my eating, but nothing worked beyond a week. I was that weak.
Last October, however, something happened. I'm not sure what. Maybe I finally reached bottom. Maybe both my husband and I had. But when I came across an idea I hadn't tried before, when I brought it up, both of us jumped in, feet first.
I'll talk about what that idea was, and why it has been so pivotal, in my next post. ;)
