My Fat Story

My story starts where I'm sure a lot of stories do...at school with a bully. To this day, I vividly remember sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch across from a boy. I make eye contact with him, and what happens next has stuck with me my entire life. He looks back at me, calls me a pig, snorts at me, and laughs about it with his friend. I was crushed. Until that point, I had never been made fun of nor do I remember ever seeing anyone else being made fun of. I was a first grader.

First day of 1st Grade

Doing the math, I'm 27 now...first graders are 6 or 7, so I've been dealing with body issues and identifying myself solely by my weight for 20 years. 20 years!

I've never known what it's like to be thin. Probably around middle school, I started spending summer after summer thinking about how I would start working out, lose a lot of weight, and go back to school in the fall looking like a totally different person. Summer vacation reality? Watching TV, sleeping late, and eating junk food all summer long. So, by the time a new school year rolled around, I was a totally different person...only in the wrong direction...weight went higher instead of lower.

Would my life be different if I had always been thin? Absolutely. Would I have been voted 'Quietest' in my senior class? Maybe not. Would I have dated and/or had a boyfriend? Possibly. Would I always feel like my weight is the only thing people notice about me? I don't think so.

It is extremely difficult for me to imagine reaching my goal weight. I needed my school medical records last year, and when I received them, I looked over my weight through the years. My goal weight is currently 150 pounds. Last time I was there? 5th grade AND I was also 9 inches shorter then. I'm 5'10" now. I can't even picture myself at my 8th grade weight of 213 pounds, which is only 31 pounds away.

5th grade: 150 lbs.

I've been working out and doing my best to eat healthier going on 9 weeks now. When I started this blog in January, I knew this would be the time everything would click, but I wasn't sure why I thought that. What's so different about this time compared to all the other times I've attempted it? I think I discovered why through writing this post.

2010: 50s Day at School

After 20 years, I was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. I had two choices. I could keep on marching down the same road I've been on for years now: using food as a crutch and comfort, living a sedentary lifestyle, saying 'I'll start tomorrow' every Sunday night, OR I could veer off that road and make my own path: figure out why I'm an emotional eater, start training to participate in 5Ks and half-marathons, finally admit to myself that what I've done in the past is not working and realize change has to happen.

Christmas 2009

I choose to create my own path...one step at a time, one day at a time, one pound at a time.

2012 Cruise