Why do YOU have a weight problem?

Wow where do I start? I have a lot of traumas in my life. Most of my weight gain was caused by turning to food for comfort and an overeating/emotional eating problem. My weight has been a ever-lasting battle. It didn’t help that my grandmother and grandfather hassled me about my weight as well.

My parents got divorced when I was a child and when we moved, I got tossed into a new school where everyone had known each other since they were in their mother’s wombs. Since I was the new kid, I got picked on. As we got older, the kids who picked on me became teenagers who picked on me.

I changed schools after the 8th grade and started going to a private school. In high school is when I really started gaining weight. In 9th grade, I went from a size 12 to a size 16 by the beginning of my junior year. That lightened the teasing up some but I was still the outsider because I hadn’t been born into private school. During 10th grade, I was put on anti-depressants.

After the start of my junior year at OLA, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. My mother and I decided to stay for the storm, along with my grandparents around the corner. My dad was frantic and came down from North Mississippi and helped us. On August 29, the flood waters came in and changed our lives forever. My house got 8 ft of water and we were trapped in the attic of our home for 8 hours. After leaving our home and taking refuge in the local church I didn’t have time to think about what I had lost. A week after the storm, my uncle came and took us to Baton Rouge. I was picked up by a friend of mine and his family and was enrolled in the same school he and his sister attended. While there I made some friends but otherwise didn’t really make myself known. When the local public school opened back home, my dad came and uprooted me again and enrolled me in that school, which also put me back into the presence of the teenagers who teased me in middle school…except they had just gotten older and crueler. During this time my weight gain just got worse and I went from a size 16 in junior year to a size 24 by the time I graduated in May 2007. At the end of senior year, I looked into the LapBand surgery and my therapist did not give me the psych evaluation so I wasn’t cleared to have it done. She convinced me that I’d be able to lose the weight on my own.

That summer and around the time I went to college I stayed the same size, but within months of moving to college I shot up to over 300 pounds. I got very depressed and really kept to myself. I got involved with church and it was my saving grace. I withdrew from my sisters in the sorority I was a member of and the only two people I really hung around with were my big sis and one of my friends through her. I went to parties with them and was introduced to alcohol and drank as much as possible. I got placed on academic probation following the fall semester and had to petition to be allowed back for the spring semester, which I was. I ended up terminating my membership in the sorority because I was bullied by several of my “sisters” and was told to quit or they would find a reason to throw me out.

During the middle of the semester, I was diagnosed with diabetes and put on medication. My blood sugar was over 900 points and my doctor said that I should’ve been in a coma, so I missed a week of classes (mid-term week) to have saline drips to bring my blood sugar to a normal level. The medication started to help me with my weight problem and I started dating one of my best friends. By the time I moved home in May, I had dropped from 300 pounds to about 240. Things were going good with me and the guy I was dating, I had found a job, and I was happy.

In July, I was down to 220 pounds but that was also the month my father committed suicide and I almost lost my boyfriend. That week I was also diagnosed with Depressive Bipolar Disorder, which explained my chronic depression for the 7 years prior to my diagnosis. Things started getting rocky with me and the guy I was dating and I could feel him pulling away from me. In November, I was at my lowest weight, 210 pounds, which was a number I hadn’t seen since in 3 or 4 years and my doctor said that I was no longer considered a diabetic so he took me off the medication. I found out a few days before my birthday (November 28) that my boyfriend had been cheating on me. He told me it had only been a month, but I later found out it had been since the very beginning. That depressed me to the lowest I had been in years. I was in school but it didn’t have an effect on my grades, thank goodness.

I started gaining weight again in February or March of 2009. It came on gradually and by July, I was at 250 pounds. I tried diet pills, but didn’t do well with my diet or exercise and gave up on the medication. After my grandmother passed away in January, I finally felt free because she had always harassed me about my weight and even would call me a fat-*kitten* and a worthless pig…things of that sort. I started looking into medical weight loss treatments and exercise programs.

In May 2010, at 265 pounds, I started the Aspen Clinic and the doctor there put me on Phentermine and that started helping me lose weight immediately. In July, I was introduced to CrossFit by one of my friends, whose boyfriend was a certified CF trainer. I am hooked and I love what I am doing. To date I have lost almost 21 pounds (12 of that has been since July) and now weigh 245 pounds. I am hoping to be 230 by mid-December. By July of next year, I am hoping to be between 180 and 200 pounds and then I’ll start maintaining. I don’t want to have to worry about my weight problems ever again.

Same here there was a time i didnt buy anything that you couldn't fry

STRESS STRESS STRESS... That what I think. I had terrible trauma over the last couple years. First My daughter was disabled and passed 6 month old. Then I broke my ankle and was incapcitated for about 3 months. While I was in cast my husband cheated with someone from a chat room. Left me and my son on Christmas to do something so SICK !!! didnt even see his own son open his X-MAS... Not to mention the fact that since all this happen he verbally abuses, blames, critisizes and complains about everything now. No love or affection or help of any kind anymore. Its like living with a ZOMBIE!!!....

I read alot about Cortisol levels and stress. They are in overdrive, its like no matter if I literally starve and work out like a Maniac nothing shifts. Its like I'm in survival mode and my body won't LET GO of the weight....

I don't know :ohwell: