[Imampaictjg]

Damn, Michelle... I've been avoiding telling my story but after yours I feel obligated. LOL

Let's see, like you, I was a fat kid. Actually, I was born fat. I was put on my first diet at the age of 8. I was in second grade. My older sister put me on it. She was 18 and a Senior in HS and, obviously, didn't like have a fat little sister. Since she was my after school supervisor (while mom played golf, went bowling or whatever...) she got to dictate my after school snack. Guess what I got? Ice cubes. I kid you not! To this day, my mom doesn't believe me. But that's what I got. We were living in the Phillippines at the time, so ice cubes weren't totally unwelcome, but come ON. That was when I realized there was something "wrong" with my body... it wasn't "right"... and I needed "punishment" for it being fat. I was an embarrassment. I remember it very clearly... that feeling of discovery that all is NOT okay with me. I was defective. And it was clearly something to be ashamed of. So, finally, my sister graduated and returned to the US for college (thank God).

The next time I knew I was "different" was in 4th grade. The school nurse decided something had to be done about the fat kids. She weighed and measured every single kid in the school. I was the second heaviest student... not in my grade... in the whole school. My best friend that year was the poor girl who got first place. Her name was Autumn. I loved her dearly. As part of the program, the school nurse required us fat kids to bring our lunches to her in the morning. She would go through them and remove anything she deemed offensive. Then, at lunch time, the fat kids had to eat in the nurse's office. This is probably why Autumn and I became good friends. I don't remember that any of us got any smaller that school year.

5th grade I spent stateside. I was miserable trying to make new friends. 6th and 7th found us back in the PI and me bigger than ever. 8th grade... back to the US... and Junior High School. Here is when things got rough. School dances were torturous. Everyone else was "pairing off"... but not the fat kids.

The summer between Jr high and high school I went on my first self imposed diet. We spent that summer on the island where my mom lives. They rented a summer cottage. By then I was the only kid left at home. I was determined to not go through high school fat. So... for b'fast I had cornflakes and skim milk. Lunch was a single slice cheese sandwich with mustard and one diet 7Up. Dinner was tiny portions of whatever my mom made. No snacking. No junk food. And I rode my bike miles and miles over that island. I was only home for meals... the rest of the time was spent outside and active. I lost 30# that summer and for the first time in my entire life I was (and felt) thin. I remember I started HS weighing 125. Kids I had been in class with just three months earlier didn't recognize me... they thought I was a new kid. THAT was fun. By the end of that year we were moving again... this time to Spain. I spent the next three years weighing between 124 (when cheering) and 128 (when I wasn't). I graduated at 128.

Back to the US and off to college... where I was too self conscious to eat in the cafeteria and lost 10# the first two months of school. In late October I met my future dh. Poor thing thought 118 was my normal weight. LOL By the end of my second year of college I had lost some inhibitions and gained the ability to drink massive amounts of beer... and also gained about 20#. I graduated college about 135. Still not really fat, just feeling that way. I can mark the stages and events in my life with what I weighed. Can anyone else do that?

Graduate college... 135.
Get engaged... 135.
Get married... 145.
Return from honeymoon... 155.
Get pg... 165.
Give birth... 225+.
Get pg again... 165.
Give birth again... 215.
Move
Diet down to 146.
Eat up to 189.
Diet down to 135.
Dad dies.
Eat up to 163.
Diet down to 120.
MIL dies.
Eat up to 168.
Diet down to 118.
DS#1 walks out of our lives for a year.
Eat up to 143.5.
Diet down to today's weight of 127.

I am the human yo-yo and consumate emotional eater. I am either totally in control, or totally out of control. Black or white... very little room for gray in my life.

I'll end this thing with some positive thoughts. All in all I've been very fortunate in my life. Yes, I've dealt with eating and weight issues, but in the whole scheme of things, that's not so bad. And, today, I weigh what I did in high school... 30 years later. AND, today, I am 98# lighter than my heaviest ever recorded weight. AND, I'm healthy... happy... still married to the love of my life and I have two healthy, terrific sons. I have nothing to complain about.

Tril

[Arrecteve]

Wow-
it's just incredible to hear other stories and realize how well they relate to you.

I spent a lot of my life thinking I was alone in this journey. I am now seeing that I was very wrong.

also Tril, you moved so much! That must've been difficult. I never moved until after I graduated highschool.

Your ending notes are ones to be admired. I am happy and healthy as well, and I'm not going to let anyone or anything take that away from me.

[Xcqjwarl]

Tril - My sister is also ten years older than me, and I am not sure of what age I was, but at some point she had me on a "diet" as well. She was my babysitter since my mom worked as a nurse and was gone all crazy hours of the day. She made me eat lettuce, with no dressing and baked chicken, plain. Had no impact on my weight whatsoever. If anything I kept getting bigger, and bigger.

On another note - I can't believe your school would let the nurse have the fat kids eat in her office? I have never heard of such a thing.


I have never been "normal" weight. At my lowest I was a 16, at some point during high school, my first boyfriend, wanted to impress him - Actually did Atkins with my mom and lost a lot of weight. Unfortunately, I ballooned up when we broke up and then some, all the way up to a size 26 when I started college.

My biological parents are both well over 300 pounds, and I think I always just thought "this is it, I'll never lose weight, when I try, I fail, and that's that." Then I did Atkins again, first year of college, when I realized that at a size 26 jeans - I could barely find clothes that fit me, and couldn't afford/deal with buying a 28! I went down to an 18 within 6 months, and that's where I have been since then.

I feel like too many times in my life I have felt like the fattest person in the room. Sometimes I look around compare, and am like - crap - I AM the biggest person in the room. And I'm finally threw with that. I'm thru with the "ill never be skinny" crap that I tell myself every time I fall off of the diet wagon.

Now I tell myself, "I may never be 'skinny' but what I eat, and how I look is MY choice. My choice is to be healthy, and to feel good about myself. And that's what I'm going to do"

[Imampaictjg]

Michelle... my dad worked for the US Navy while I was growing up. We moved to Navy bases in the Phillippines (two tours) and Spain. The moving became normal after the first time. That one was hard... I was 8. The other hard one was after my freshman year of high school. But I have to say, it was the BEST thing ever for me. Living in other countries... meeting all those people... it makes you different. As dh says, he could take me to a dog fight or a presidential inauguration and I'd feel comfortable. I like meeting people and I don't have a shy bone in my body (as long as I'm dressed LOL).

Panda... that nurse thing happened at a D.O.D. school on a Navy base in the PI... 38 years ago. A lot went on back then that wouldn't be allowed in this day and age. I know, in my heart, that she was just trying to help us. She thought if we ate in her office that we couldn't "snitch" bad food... I'm not sure why she thought one meal 5 days a week could make any difference, but I give her credit for trying. LOL

And Panda, I'm very proud of you for not allowing yourself to fall into the "I can't" or "it's genetics" trap. Skinny does not equal happy.... or healthy. We can be bigger than skinny and be just right.

I wonder if ALL women instictively scan a room to size up the other women and compare them to herself. I've done that all my life. It stinks to be the biggest one. But having been on both extremes of the spectrum, it's not all fun and games if you're the smallest one, either. It's amazing how women who were once friendly and supportive become vicious and cool when the only difference is being the smallest one now. You get NO empathy... no support... no understanding. And heaven help you if you agree that eating right is hard, or the food choices are difficult, etc. Even if they KNEW you fat, some will treat you like you never were. A real eye opener... and something I try VERY hard not to do when a thin woman makes a "fat woman" comment. Just like inside every overweight woman there's a thin woman dying to get out... inside of every woman who's lost weight there's a fat woman afraid she'll come out again.

Tril

[Crilosajsamq]

complacency and good living....plus the fact that when I look in the mirror fron on I think I look great (wrong!!).
Ive yo-yo'd for 13 years (since the birth of our daghter) who has been in and out of hospital 164 times - hospital food and boredom during wiating times makes you eat becuase its better than banging your head against a brick wall.
What makes me determined more than ever this time is that I work on TV in the Uk and seeing myself at the end of Sept was the wake up call I needed.
I went on 3 weeks later a stone lighter and when I go on again after christmas, i want to be even slimmer.
So Tv kick started it but also I was ready to fight

Good luck my fat busting freinds xx

[Effopsytupt]

I was always "skinny" but not really aware of it. I had a best friend from about grade 4 until I graduated high school that kept telling me that I was fat. I am very tall (almost 6 ft) and was 125 lbs for as far back as I can remember, until 1999. Can you imagine? 125 lbs and my "best" friend thinks I'm fat. In hind sight it was very good for me as I never judged others and managed to make some wonderful "fluffy" friends over the years.

From the time I was a teen I smoked (and I won't even lie and say socially). Smoking was definitely a crutch the way food would become later. In the summer of 1999 my doctor found spots on my lungs and told me if I wanted half a chance of surviving this I had to leave her my pack of cigarettes. Of course I did - and obviously I survived.

During my treatment and recovery my weight kept increasing. I just about killed myself trying to exercise it off but I was way too weak to really be doing much good in the gym. I then bought a treadmill so that I wouldn't have to waste energy getting back and forth to the gym and I could just tread every day at home. Well, that didn't get me far for too long either.

A few months ago I ran into a girl that I used to work with. When I stopped to talk to her she said she didn't recognize me. Literally. That was the turning point for me. I cried and cried. A wonderful girl that I work with introduced me to Atkins and suggested we do it together, and that brings me here.

Between the girl at work and all of you - I will be recognizable by this time next year.

[JulietOreira]

Thank you everybody for sharing your stories. It's great to know that we're not alone!

I could go into a lot pf psychobabble (Abandoned by father, pressure to make my mum proud, relationship with brother etc etc) about why I overeat and binge - but I'll try to limit it.

When I was 19 and at University, my binge eating and state off mind completely took over my life. I spent days locked in my room berating msyelf for being a pig and then stuffing my face to make myself feel better - it was a very vicious cycle. Eventually, I realised I needed some help so I took some time out from Uni and I seen a counseller for a while. Although, this helped me identify some of the reasons for why I do it, I was never in the right frame of mind to do anything about my weight - diets etc would trigger me to binge again!

I was a skinny kid before all that. From the age of 4 until I was 14 I did Irish Dancing. 3 hours three night a week, and 5 hours on a saturday. I also played netball and hockey at school! i was so active. My diet was average and fairly healthy (my mum being a single parent couldn't afford take-aways or fast-food) - but we would get treats and I would always use my pocket money to by crisps and sweets when I was going to dancing cos all my friends would have sweets to.

Then I became a moody teenager! hehehe. And when i turned 14 i stopped dancing, and gradually stopped other sports. This also coincided with when my group of so-called friends at the time decided they didn't want to be my friend anymore.
I was also much taller than anyone else in my age-group, so I became very self-conscious. I guess this when i started eating too much bad food and trying to justify it by telling myself "you're taller than everyon eso you're always going to weigh more anyway, and you'r always going to wear bigger clothes."

I remember that i was a UK size 10 when I was 13 years old (being tall I still looked skinny).
In the past ten years I have gradually grown to a UK 16/18.

I don't know what my weight was throughout this time as I was always too afraid to know the number.

Anyway... every few months or every new year for the past 10 years I have said that I'm going to lose weight. I never did - because my hert was never truly in it, and i would always end up binging again.

but... I'm 25, very nearly 26 and it's about time (hence my name) that I finally sorted it out once and for all.

All the female member os my family on my mums side are overweight. All my Aunt's are obese.
My mum is obese.
I do not want to get to that point, as I've seen my mum struggle and be unhappy because of it (we talk openly about how she feels cos we are the best of friends). And my mum doesn't want me to get like her either.

I see "The atkins" as a new way of life...

The origin of the word 'diet' is from the Greek word 'diaita' which means 'prescribed way of living' not just ruthless caloric restriction.

I began inducation for the first time on Monday 6th Januay 2009.
I weighed in at 200lbs.

So far... although I'm aware it is very early days... I am enjoying it. I am eating better now that i did at any time in the past 10 years. I use to never eat breakfast, or if I did it would be 2 croissants on the run (not 1, always 2!). I am cooking for myself. I rarely cooked before - lunch would've been a baguette, or sandwich, or full roast dinner (!), and dinner either a forzen meal or another baguette with some processed filling!
So i feel better alreadt because I'm haveing proper meals.

Also, the fact that I'm having proper meals means I am totally satisfied after each one and so I don't crave crisps or choclate! (which is very unusual for me!!)

I do hope this lasts! And from reading everyones posts in all the other threads I can see that this works, and that struggles will happen, and that it can be tough. But I've also seen the progress pcitures that people have put up! and oh. my. god. What better inspiration that seeing real results!

I wish everyone the best of luck!

I will no doubt be lurking around this board constantly (seeing as I'm only in day three I'm a little preoccupied with dreaming of what I might look like at the end of the year - and I keep coming to this forum to read everyones stories!)

Jeez... Sorry for writing so much!! I got a bit carried away!!