This is my story.

This is my story.

I have no memory of being normal weight. I know that there was a time when I was like every other child, because I have seen the pictures. I suppose when you are young and normal you don't go around thinking about how normal and not-overweight you are.

I don't remember the year or my exact age when I first noticed my weight. I remember stepping on the scale and realizing that my weight was going up every time I stepped onto the scale.

I passed 180 before the age of thirteen. I am almost certain of that. I don't remember when I passed 200. When I was young I used to wonder why I was getting heavier and heavier. I didn't know anything about calories. I remember standing in front of giant mirror in our house and wondering why I was so ugly. I remember praying to God and begging for him to take the weight away. I remember wanting to kill myself when my prayers weren't answered. I wasn't even a teenager yet.

In middle school and the first two years of high school I would get dropped off by the bus around 3pmish. My parents didn't get home until 5pmsomething. There was always icecream in our freezer. I would regularly make myself a bowl of icecream and plant myself in front of the television. I usually didn't move until 6, when the news came on.

I made myself an early meal or dinner on a pretty regular basis. My cooking skills were very limited. I knew how to make macaroni or ramen noodles. The macaroni was made according to the recipe on the package, with four tablespoons of butter. When I made ramen I always used two packages. If I didn't make myself an early dinner, then I snacked until my parents got home. I don't know if they had any concept of how much food I ate before they got home. When I think about how many calories I would eat by snacking I get so angry at myself. I wish I had known what I was doing. I wish that somebody had stopped me.

High school. I won't go into the teasing. Most of the people reading this will know what that was like. Luckily for me, I wasn't just fat. I was strong. I had to hurt several kids to make them leave me alone. Luckily for me, I still had a lot of friends. I was fat, but I wasn't morbidly obese. There were kids that were much worse off than I was.

My eating habits were much worse in high school. By then I had come to believe that I was genetically predisposed to being fat. I felt like I wasn't eating more than anyone else around me. And in a sense, that was true. I wasn't eating larger meals than my peers. I was just eating more meals. And drinking more sugary drinks.

When I got to school I would buy myself a mocha coffee drink. Sometimes I got some kind of pastry to go with it (all of this sold by the school). On my way to class I would buy a 36 ounce Dr. Pepper to take with me (sold by the school). At lunch time I usually had two pretzels with cheese. I don't remember if that came with french fries. It might have. Sometimes I would have one or two personal pan pizzas instead. I would also have another 36 ounce Dr. Pepper with my meal.

When my meal was finished I would buy another 36 ounce Dr. Pepper to take with me to class. Before I got on the bus I would buy another 36 ounce Dr. Pepper to take with me. My parents wouldn't normally buy us soda (other than Diet Coke), so I am sure they had no idea how much of it I drank. I realize now that I was drinking about 1200 calories a day in Dr. Pepper.

I got a little better in my Junior year. I moved to a school in Texas and they were much more restrictive about what they served at the school. I didn't get much better though. I learned to buy a very cheap lunch and save my lunch money. On my way home I would buy 3 bean & cheese burritos to eat on the way home. For some reason I didn't count that as a meal. Every now and then I would pray to God and ask to lose the weight. No response from up above. Assuming there is a God, I don't think there is much he could have done for me.

It got worse for me in college. I had always managed to have lots of friends, but my self esteem had been completely destroyed by years of being taunted and years of self loathing. I could appear to have confidence, but on the inside I hated myself. I suffered from depression. The depression made the eating worse.

In college we had a meal plan that allowed for two meals a day. The meal plan included a certain amount of extra dollars that you could use to buy crap from vending machines, from the college store, or to have an extra meal at the cafeteria. I spent most of the money on icecream bars.

When you only have two meals a day you can get very hungry. I would usually skip breakfast, go for lunch, and go for dinner. This means that if I had dinner at 6PM, I wasn't going to get to eat again for eighteen hours. When I finally got there for lunch I gorged myself. I ate pizza, french fries, burritos, and washed it down with glass after glass of Mountain Dew. I ate a lot at dinner. I reasoned that I needed to eat a lot to get through the next eighteen hours. With some of my extra spending money I would eat out at the local diner or McDonalds. At the diner my favorite thing to do was get a bottomless Dr. Pepper and an Order of Cheese Fries (topped with bacon).

I remember when I got close to weighing 300 pounds. That was a hard time for me. I know that you are going to think I must have been stupid, but I didn't really understand why I weighed so much. Plus, I felt that I was destined to be fat for the rest of my life. Why resist when you're going to be fat anyways?

I broke up with my long term girlfriend. I started working out. I gained muscle. I lost 20something pounds. I weighed 270. I got a job working in the oil fields during the summer. I worked 12 hour days, seven days a week. It was a very physical job. I got down to 240something and I was ripped with muscle.

I still didn't understand calories-in calories-out. When the job ended I lost the muscle. I gained the weight back. I promised myself I would get back into shape before law school. That way I would meet a law school girl.

I didn't lose the weight in law school. I did meet a law school girl, but she wasn't very nice. One summer I started running/jogging/hiking. I am pretty sure I got back down to 240something. I didn't want to weigh myself because I didn't want to know what my weight was. School started again. Law school is incredibly demanding on time. I didn't have time to work out for two hours a day. I stopped working out and I gained the weight back. I still didn't understand calories-in calories-out. I don't know when I stopped drinking non-diet sodas, but it must have been around law school time. I still ate out a lot though. I lived near a pizza place and a delicious sub sandwich place. Food was a great way to deal with the stress of school.

I graduated law school. Nothing really changed. I still ate too much. I did work out quite a bit for a while, but with the amount of calories I was eating, I never really had a chance.

A few years after law school things started to change. I met a girl that was pretty health conscious. She made me face up to what I was eating and how much I was eating. I cut down on the alcohol (eating isn't the only bad habit that law school gave me), I cut down on the eating-out, I tried to pay attention to calories. I tried to work out. I lost ten pounds. I gained five pounds. I lost 5 pounds. I weighed 260. I was able to hold my weight at 260, but I couldn't seem to get it to go down. I married the health conscious girl.

In May of 2012 I finally started to win some battles in this war against myself. The reason I believe that this time was different is because the weight came of slowly through lifestyle change and working out. Everything I did could be, and has been, maintained.

I remember going up the stairs to my office and realizing that my knees hurt. I was 29. I'm sure some of you will know how being fat can age you much faster. I went home that day, put on my running shoes, and started to run up and down the street. It hurt. Bad. My chest burned because it was bouncing around and my man-boobs were pulling on my chest. I was ashamed to understand why women have to wear sports bras. The next day I moved the workout to a local school that had lots of grass. It hurt a lot, but I ran lap after lap. The grass was easier on my knees.

The weight began to fall off. I began to read about nutrition and calories. I learned to control the size of my meals and how often I ate. I started planning a big weekend hike or physical activity for every weekend. I took pleasure in checking the scale every morning. I took pleasure in saying no to seconds. I knew, for the first time in my life, that I was not predestined to be obese forever. Losing weight was a question of willpower, not luck, not curses, not magic, not destiny.

It took a lot of work, but I got down to 240. Slowly. But this time I did it right. I wasn't working out unsustainably. I wasn't denying myself good food, I was just being reasonable. I had no specific diet, just calories-in calories-out. I still drink too much Diet Coke.

I got a new job and moved. It interrupted my workout routine, but I stayed smart about what I ate. I started working out, but I wasn't losing any weight. I suspect that this is because I was eating out a lot at my new job. Making friends and connections is part of what I do for a living. Lunches at restaurants is one of the best ways to do that.

I started bringing my lunches and being picky about what I ate when I ate out at lunch. I try to steer people to having a quick sandwich with me at Subway. Not because I really like Subway all that much, but because the calories can be reasonable. I began using myfitnesspal to help me.

Today I weighed in at 234. I am shooting for 200, or as low as I can go. Whichever comes first. I want to lose the weight because I do not want to suffer the health consequences that will surely come if I don't lose the weight. And there will be consequences.

A few years ago I was told that I was borderline pre-diabetic. I was also told that my cholesterol was some of the worst the doctor had ever seen. He told me that in ten years I would very likely have a heart attack or stroke. I was 27. I am almost 31 now. I used to joke around that I would eat the way I wanted for another 9 years or so, and then lose the weight in year ten. I guess joking about it made me feel better. Deep down I know that it is no laughing matter.

I wish that I had been better educated as a child, when it came to nutrition. I wish that my parents had never let me eat the way I did. I wish that when I got older I hadn't felt so devoid of hope. I wish I could have avoided the depression and self loathing. I wish that stress didn't make me want to eat. I wish that I had taken some freaking responsibility for myself.

But wishing won't change anything.

The good news is that I am in control now. I am winning this fight against my own bad habits and destructive impulses. For the first time in my life I haven't regained the weight I've lost.

I am winning. I am in control. I can do this. This is my mantra.

I don't know why I felt the urge to tell you my story, but I appreciate you taking the time to read it.