Bitterness is really ugly & so"WAS" I-success stories pls!

Well I've dropped weight twice, so here's my story -

In Fall 2009 I was the maid of honor at my friend's wedding. Dress size 16 (they warned me they were UK sizing, not sure why in America, but ok!) I was the biggest one. One was a size 4, Two was a size 10, I was a 16. After looking at those photos, I figured "the camera adds 10 pounds, I am not fat!". Oh how wrong was I. I started undergrad school that same month and I was eating a TON... 2 sandwiches a day for lunch, and eating out constantly. I was exhausted, overwhelmed with studies, and working on the weekends. I thought I had my life all together and things were going great (I was in school, had a decent job, and my health seemed fine!). Sometimes my friends would ask how I was feeling and the answer was always fine. One day a good friend pulled me aside and told me straight up. "You're hiding behind the food and I don't know why. You've ballooned in the 3 years I've known you. It's getting out of hand and you need to figure out why you feel the need to eat so much". Needless to say, I didn't talk to her for a few months. I was not fat! Yeah so I gained a little weight. Everyone does in college!

At the end of the semester, I was up to 167 pounds (57 pounds heavier than when I graduated high school, in 5 years time).Nothing I owned fit me anymore, but I still managed to squeeze into it so I didn't have to buy new clothes (and that was my saving grace - "I'm not fat, look, I'm wearing a size 8!, same pants I wore last year, I told you I'm not fat!"). And at the age of 24, I dreaded summers going to the beach with friends and stopped dating all together because I started feeling horrible about myself, let alone what anyone else thought of me. If I didn't like me, why would anyone else? I became a hermit, shut out most of my friends, and just tried to stay out of everyone's way because I didn't want to be told I was fat anymore. If no one could tell me, I must be doing fine, and if they wanted to tell me I would change the subject and/or avoid them for a few weeks so I didn't have to hear it.

I would be graduating college in spring 2011 with a degree in law, and I wanted to be a police officer. Kind of tough to do when you're overweight. I met a wonderful friend who was also training to be an officer, and we had all our classes together that semester. I started eating healthier and going to the gym with her every other day. I was slowly dropping weight, and gaining back energy! As an early grad present, my parents got me a 6 month membership to Crossfit. At this particular crossfit they used the paleo method diet with crossfit exercises. I dropped 37 lbs in just 4 months then maintained that for about 4 months.

Insert medical problems here. I was out on disability for debilitating headaches and extreme weakness. I could barely move most days. Since I was stuck at home, having difficulty driving with the headaches, I started eating pizza, chips, soda... I needed to be comforted! No one could figure out what was going on. I was tested for just about everything under the sun (Lyme's disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus). Everything was negative (including my outlook on life, the doctors didn't believe I was always in pain, maybe I am just crazy...). The doctors told me it was in my head, that maybe I needed psych counseling. I went and got a second opinion and finally, an answer. 6 months after the whole ordeal, I was diagnosed with moderate Fibromyalgia. I think this was when everything really hit me. I needed to change my lifestyle so I didn't end up being in more pain and being a martyr all my life. I could either let this bring me down the rest of my life, Or I could do something about it.

Those first few months I did act like a martyr. It took the meds time to kick in, but once they did, I slowly gained back strength and confidence that I can do a lot more than the limits I put on myself. I found my dream job working full time as a dispatcher (I had to realize I couldn't be an officer anymore, and I couldn't continue being a medic with the county because of the stress and the pain I was enduring every day on the job from my Fibro). I began volunteering 2 days a week after work, and taking yoga. I've met the love of my life (who has stood by me at my heaviest and the lightest, through all the Fibro issues and is a wonderful support for me). My life has changed in so many way!

At age 24 (167 pounds) - Hated myself most days, Ate to hide the pain, didn't listen to my friends when they said it's getting out of control, and was suicidal for a while. I figured "I'm 24, single, and no one wants to be with me because of my weight. I'll never get married and have a family and I hate going out with friends because they are all skinny and I'm the big one". Most of my friends at this time were getting married, and I hated that I was left out. I figured I would never experience life if I kept hiding behind the food. I was controlling, everything had to be my way or no way at all and it had to happen on my time. That was my way of coping with the pain.

At age 27 (today - 133 pounds) - I have a wonderful job and even more wonderful friends. I've found my passion in my volunteer work and I look forward to it each and every day. I'm eating healthier options, have more energy, and the doctors are talking about slowly decreasing my Fibro meds because I've learned to manage the pain with yoga, diet, light exercise (walking mainly), and essential oil usage. I'm working on my controlling ways, and have learned through yoga to let things go and fall into place on their own.

It may not seems like a lot, or like I didn't have to go through a lot to realize my ugliness, but I can honestly say now that I love life, medical issues and all, because that's what makes me who I am!

December 2009 - 167 pounds
July 2011 - 137 pounds
January 2012 - 150 pounds
Today - 133 pounds

I don't have anything too specific - but I know that when I am happy with myself, I am kinder to the rest of the world. When I feel insecure, I have to fight that nagging little voice that judges others and tries to bring them down to how I feel. When I feel comfortable with my body, I am happier to see everyone else happy as well.

This is going to be kind of long, partly because I feel the need to get it off my chest. I'm not really near my goal weight yet, but I am in a much healthier place mentally than I've ever been so I feel like I can post here! :flowerforyou:

I have been overweight for as long as I can remember, but I wasn't technically obese until my first year of college. I didn't have terrible body image issues, despite being overweight - I am pretty tall and was fairly athletic and so I was able to carry 200+ lbs in a way that I thought still looked ok. Not great, but not terrible. I did, however, have emotional eating issues - triggered by having an over-filled schedule and lack of control over a few big choices in my life.

My mom took me to join Jenny Craig at age 13. I was a terrible little cheater :drinker: and so it didn't do a damn thing.

My grandmother told me that I would be beautiful if I would just lose my belly. :brokenheart:

My dad made it clear that he wished I was more of a natural athlete. :frown:

None of them are bad people, and they have all been very supportive for most of my life - it's just that those particular words were burned into my psyche. Bitterness hadn't actually set in, yet.

To top all that off, I grew up in a cult (but didn't realize it until I was 20 years old :noway:). Throughout high school & college, I had a youth "mentor" that was about 5 years older than I was - she didn't have an amazing figure either, despite the fact that she was always trying something new and crazy to lose weight. Allowing her to 'help' me with life decisions is my one big regret so far in life. There are so many stories I could tell about ways I feel like she brainwashed me, but I'll keep it to the weight aspect . I started to lift heavy weights in high school and loved it, but she told me that I should stop because it was going to make me bulky. So I did. Her ideas about femininity and stress management were completely backwards. I was a vocalist at our church, and I really loved that too - but, one day she told me that she was passing me up for an opportunity because I would be on stage, and my weight was too much of a problem. That it would reflect poorly on her, because they had to keep certain standards for the people on stage. I was a shapely size 16, 5'9" and 19 years old and mad as hell. :mad:

I finally realized that she was a poisonous person to be around, and dropped her, and my entire community of friends that had also grown up in that cult - but kept the hatred for them burning for quite some time.

This attitude that I was not truly accepted helped me to lose 40lbs. But it came back, along with 30 more lbs. In the last 4 years, the lowest I have weighed is 180lbs. I got there with a super unhealthy diet, 500 calories a day and no exercise. Then, last year, I got engaged to my fantastic husband and hired a personal trainer, who really helped me to see the value of strength over numbers on the scale. I started to lift some heavier weights again, and the fire had started again! I ended up loving how I looked on my wedding day, extra pounds and all (my profile has some pics). However, after the honeymoon, I started a new job and the stress eating went off. the. charts. And still I had terrible days filled with bitterness.

At the beginning of this year, I felt truly uncomfortable in my own skin for the first time ever. At my highest weight ever, I felt so much shame and guilt, no matter how beautiful my husband told me he thought I was. I had acne for the first time ever. My sister bought me a book called "A Course In Weight Loss," and it completely changed how I was viewing health and weight loss. I am normally pretty skeptical (being in a cult will do that to you) but this book was different. The author proposes that extra weight on your body can be representative of extra weight in your mind. She suggests that you need to allow every version of yourself, at every weight, exist with equal love and acceptance. That I needed to recognize the battle scars on my body from war with myself, waged by overeating foods that I <i>knew</i> were damaging. And that I needed to forgive in order to be healthy. All my weight loss attempts in the past have been for the purpose of being good enough for someone else... but now, I can pursue health for myself AND love my body even though it is fat.

My weight hasn't changed, but I feel a hundred pounds lighter.

Now, I lift heavy Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and do a yoga class Tuesdays and Thursdays, and sometimes hike on the weekends with my husband. I eat about 2,000 calories per day (compared to the 500 before!), and I've been losing weight in a way that feels good for the first time in my life. Even my bad days are filled with hope. So anyways, that's my success story - my mind is stronger and less weighted, and I'm sure my body will follow. :bigsmile:

ETA: The places I've highlighted are so very DEEP and thrilling and life giving to me...again, sister girl---YOU ROCK and I'm so proud of you and happy for you too!

My time was when I realized that I reached a weight that I said I would never get to! I also realized that I needed to make a change when I saw some VERY unflattering pictures my boyfriend had taken back in Jan. It was so difficult to look at them and realize that I was lying to myself when I said everything was fine. And last but not least, I realized that I was losing my ability to exercise. I couldn't do much of anything without huffing and puffing and I was shying away from activities with my friends because of my weight.

I weighed 235 pounds in January and am currently down 10 pounds as of today. I haven't stuck with my stuff as tight as I should (I still battle the emotional eating and the binging) but I'm realizing that I am getting older and that I can't keep living my life like this without consequences. My goal is to be to my first goal weight of 170 by May 2014. I have 55 pounds to lose to reach that goal. If I reach it sooner, great for me! If I exceed that goal, wonderful!! After that my ultimate goal weight is 140 pounds. That's how much I weighed when I was 19-20 and that is the healthiest weight for my height. It's a hard road, but it's even harder to take pills and be stuck at home alone and depressed!!

My story is a little different. I never got into the obese stage...I got my wake-up call the last time I went home to see my family.

I look just like my father, and I mean that. If you put his picture at 18 and mine side by side, you'd think they were the same person. I joined the military at 17 and left home and have never gone back...now living on the east coast.

My father had double by-pass surgery at 42, and has been fighting his weight for a very long time. I never really paid much attention to it until the last time I went home.

There he was, over 300lbs 5'10" frame (same as me). My weight at that time was 205lbs. The largest I have ever been in my life. This was last summer when I saw him. He has since had to have another heart procedure and I honestly believe (and I wish I didn't), that he won't be around more than another 10 years at his current rate. I begged him while I was there to start doing some kind of exercise and to start eating less.

What made me decide I needed to think about ME was when my stepmother hugged me as I was leaving to come back home. She said "Oh, honey, you are just like your daddy. And you're following in his footsteps".

I didn't think much about it then, but on the drive home (8 hours) it occurred to me that she was "patting" my belly when she said that...so I realized then she was saying that I was literally going down the same path he did.

That scared me...hell it floored me a little! I decided right then I wasn't going to let that happen to me. I didn't find this site until October of last year, so I had already started to make some progress...I was 199lbs or so by that time. Using this site I went down to 192lbs, before the holidays hit and I let myself lapse.

I just recently decided (since my 40th birthday is the end of this month), that I'm not going to let myself waiver anymore, and I'm going to press until either my measurements put me in the "normal" weight range, or my weight does (I know if I start to put on muscle the "weight" may not actually be the right indicator)...So my goal is 179, that's where I leave the "over-weight" category.

I just can't let myself end up like my father. I just can't.

I still beg him whenever I call him to get on his treadmill for 10 minutes at a time once or twice a day...sadly I don't think he will ever do it. And I hate that I'm watching my father die before my eyes.

I woke up the day I saw a pic of me standing next to a heavy friend (that I would judge in my head saying how did she get that big) and I realized I was bigger than her. I will never judge people like that again. That was 1 year and 90lbs ago.

Congratulations, it takes a lot of fortitude to call yourself out. Not only that, you acted on it and changed yourself. Way to go!