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Let me just preface this story by saying, I never had an intention to share any of this with the world. Those close to me have encouraged me to share this story, basically the story of my life and the battle with losing over 200 pounds. My hope is that this can provide inspiration to anyone who is hopeless.
4/2008-9/2009 = 179 lbs lost (80 to go)
Like so many, I have been overweight my entire life, starting with my pediatrician logs, being over normal weight when I was 2. Later weight, comfort and emotions would all play into a very interesting combination in my life. I would come to a point where literally, if I did not change my life, change how I dealt with life, learned about my body and how to stop neglecting and abusing it, I would die.
Just like so many, my life wasn’t a bed of roses. It was full of good and bad. It was also full of emotional, verbal, sexual and physical abuse. Food became a way for me to mask my body, mask it with weight so I didn’t have to be attractive to the opposite sex. Later of course that would become a problem when you want to be! Food became my visible barrier to safeguard me from people; to keep them at a distance. Yet, at the same time, it was intimacy and connection, to be understood, that I wanted most in life.
My diet history is ridiculous, like so many. From Weight Watchers when I was 8 to living off of saltines, carrots and celery, and swimming 2 miles a day when I was 14. I vividly remember a 30 day period in high school where I ate nothing but an occasional cracker and drank water while swimming 2 miles a night. Sure I lost weight fast, but wow, did it come back later. Up and down, the weight would roll always gaining more in the end. With every emotional crisis, there would be more consumption of carbohydrates and fatty foods. The teasing was unrelenting. Later I’d grow way to accustomed to hearing, “you’ve such a pretty face and have such a great personality, you’re so cool, but…” and the but was always about my weight, of course. I developed a cycle of self abuse, self medicating and neglect. Instead of engaging in acts that were loving to myself, like proper nutrition, exercising to allow my body to release toxins and stress and looking at understanding cravings, I’d choose to get angry at my body, to hate it, to feed the hate and anger by overeating, stuffing emotions, and even physically hurting my own self. Yep, I had some issues. So many, that later on, in 2001 I’d complete a Master’s degree in psychology, trying to figure out how to fix and understand me, others, and why things happen.
In 2003, through an existential program in California, I started figuring out that part of my weight problem was a wounded problem. Those wounds were open and unhealed and I’d been stuffing pizza, beer and cakes in them to try to heal them instead of treating them with the attention and nutrients that they needed. I also started figuring out that part of my problem was a spiritual problem, a lack of connection with an energy or higher power; a serious lack of self love in a non-egocentric form. Through connecting with spirit, I was able, eventually, to stop drinking after 5 years of being an alcoholic. It would take the tragic death of my brother in 2005 to get me to stop completely for good.
Soon after my brother died, we learned that my aunt, who was like a mother to me,
