The Weightloss Journey I wish I had never started

This is the first time I've ever sone something like this before, so forgive me, if it's not quite right. Some background info- I'm 20, 5 ft tall, I had tried half heartedly whilst at school to lose weight but usually gave up or got distracted by something else, I'm quite shy and always felt embarassed by my body so I never did sports past the age of 12 and generally always over ate on the usual fried and sweet foods as i got older this turned to just sweet foods.

My journey started at the end of 2012, I had spent most of this year feeling depressed as there had been some unpleasant changes in my life and during this time my mum got a boyfriend, she started to go to his house a lot, sometimes she would stay over and return with bread, cakes and biscuits from his work as he used to deliver them to supermarkets (he doesn't work there anymore). They started going out frequently and going on holidays together, so I felt lonely/depressed/abandoned. I also felt jealous as I felt someone of my age should have friend, a boyfriend and be going out partying every weekend not waiting to die. One day, fed-up of feeling fed-up I decided there was one thing I could do to make myself feel better so I decided once and for all to lose weight- this was big as I never commit to anything for any purposeful amount of time.

After a slow start and after doing some research I managed to get to 118 pounds by april 2013 and within sight of my goal of weighing 105 for the summer/my birthday, it was hard graft as you all will know but, I knew that telling myself to never eat shop cakes and biscuits again was unrealistic, so I thought cutting back on these and my other favourite foods and eating my own fat/sugar regulated creations instead was fair however after slipping up a few times I sought the help of online articles about beating sugar craving/alternatives to sweet treats and I thought that tucking into weetabix or special K or other 'healthy cereals' instead of a homemade banana muffin or cake was a good idea (just one of many examples), soon the lifestyle change had turned into a weightloss regime. I would not allow myself to eat until after exercise, I cut back on all cheese part from cottage cheese (I love cheese), ate more legumes/beans and veggie based meals, cut out non water drinks , ate on a smaller plate, cut out/down on carbs like rice, pasta, potatoes, breads, meticulously counting calories, trying to create sugarless and fatless cakes- some of these things I only did as I lost more weight. The house was full of cakes as I wasn't eating the same volume of food before and while I had some of them frequently, they did no damage(if only I knew this at the time)

Then I made a huge mistake- I can't remember what my logic was but I had read stories of plateaus and weight regain i didn't think my lifestyle change was too drastic, after seeing 118 a couple of times on the scale and growing frustrated I decided to eat more of the supermaket foods I don't know if this was as a treat or to make myself feel better or what the reasoning was but that the moment changed everything.

I hovered at 118-121 for about a month but I couldn't fight the weight gain, the binges grew more frequent and intense to the point where I accepted them as a part of life. If I took a bite of something i would throw it in the bin then later I would come back for it, i started to consume entire cakes, giant cookies, entire batches of cookies, entire packets of sugary treats that i didn't even like and tray bakes- these were things that i never did before, I was known to have chocoate or biscuits sitting in my room for months before I remembered them, sometimes I had to be asked to finish them or take them back downstairs as having them in my room annoyed my mum and now they weren't even lasting a day. I started to get very upset whenever i had a bad day and would punch/throw things, I would cry a lot, there were some periods when i was crying daily, my mum became upset as i was covered in bruises from hitting myself, i became very irate, i was either angry or crying, the only thing i was wanted was to weight 105 pounds for my birthday as it became apparent that this wouldn't happen I lost motivation in the end I weighed 125 pounds and took a week off from dieting before restarting but it was to no avail. The lack of success and a few reality checks led to me taking a few too many sleeping tablets (i still can't work out what i did wrong, I think i needed stronger sleeping tablets and more alcohol but I don't handle alcohol very well), this derailed me quite badly for a while and I stopped exercising .

I went on an all inclusive holiday for 3 weeks later that year and I managed to lose a pound a week, I could have lost more but after avoiding sweet drinks/alcohol/desserts/sweet breakfasts for the first 6 days I caved in and had a couple of decadent dark chocolate rum truffles, I started binge eating during the second and third weeks on sachets of sugar/coffee creamer in my room (which i don't like) - my mum had to tell the maid to stop replacing the sugars/creamer at one point.. I regained the 3 pounds I lost and more on my return with cravings for fatty/sugary carribean foods as well as the usual cakes/biscuits.

Somehow I only managed to be as heavy as 138 but my motivation is nothing now compared to then, I have become obssessed with food and have further ruined my life (at least until I get more clued up on how to kill myself, hanging and wrist cutting isn't my thing). This weightloss regime has ruined me, all I think about is food, all my decisions are based around food, all I can talk about is food, food is my life, I used to be able to motivate myself to read books or learn new things but I can't do that anymore, nothing not even family is as important to me as food. As I never learn I continue to amuse myself my telling myself I only have to lose 10 pounds and the other 10 will come off 'when I go back to college' - I know I am going to gain 10 pounds if i ever go to college again(story for another time) but even if I magically went back, my focus would be on food not study, the same is true if I magically end up in a relationship if they don't eat the way I want them too, it won't work. I told myself last year that when my mum's bf leaves his work then the weight will 'fall' off because my source of sugary foods would have been cut off- not the case as I gained weight.

So the damage has a year of dieting done, I now eat entire bags/jars of ;sugar, dried fruit, nuts, honey, nutella, maple syrup, agave syrup, jam, hot chocolate powder, tins of baked beans, tins of condensed milk/caramel,
multiple pots of yoghurts, multiple packets of biscuits, several whole cakes, half a tub of ice cream, at least 3 or 4 portions of every type of cereal in the house at a time, half a block of cheese, or half tub of cream cheese,
i could eat several sweet potatoes, i even eat starchy carribean staples like pumpkin, breadfruit, plantain which I never liked before. I could eat several bananas in a day and before I started dieting I didn't even eat bananans. - I could eat all of this at one 'meal' yeat alone the traditional 3 yet alone 6 small meals that some people swear by. I no longer know how to eat a normal meal- normal to me is to eat everything in sight until I get bored/feel sick/nothing left to watch on tv.

I can't remember the last time I felt full and satisfied, I used to be upset when mum left the house but now I can't wait for her to leave because then I can stuff myself full of food. I have to try and starve myself to slow down the rate of weight gain but I love food so much that I can't go a day without eating and I usually wake up with no energy to exercise and feel crap and when i do, so I over eat and then i have to starve myself again yet whilst I am not dieting I am still in diet mode- so I can't tell myself stop dieting and expect to go back to being 133 pounds and not caring, exercising will become difficult as I know without diet I can't see any results so i am bound to end up weighing more than when i started. So here I am along with as suspect many others stuck in this vicious circle for the rest of my life as I try to fix this mess.

What really bugs me is that in hindsight the reason I gained weight was because I stopped going to college and going outside-I had daily walks during lunch because i had no friends or i would sometimes walk home for lunch (time permitting) and that was about a 40 minute walk so maybe just not getting that 1-2 hour walking 5 times a week did it rather than just overeating, I think the changes I needed to make were very subtle and I would have been able to succeed and have that positive feeling that I needed about my life, instead I now know I am even more of a disgusting human being than I thougt I was. What makes it worse is that I'm starting to think I lost weight without noticing when i was at college as I have always been a size 12/14 jeans wise throughout my teens but was able to fit into a size 10 nicely, now with this strange relationship I have with food I could easily end up being 50 or more pounds overweight rather than the 7-15 i was before- (positives at least I will die quicker.)

So why am I here?
At the moment I am trying to maintain/lose 2 or more pounds a month whilst I try to re educate myself on how to eat properly- I have lost 7 pounds this year but this week has been really bad considered there are no supermarket cakes/biscuits in the house anymore. After numerous failures to log my food using the good old pen and paper, I decided to join so that I could see the daily damage without having to step on the scale however, I am not a social creature and the only reason why I am posting here is as a punishment for binging again so that everyone here and can see what a disgusting piece of crap I am and ridicule me.

So, thank you for reading this essay or pretending to read it.
Seriously if you read it, you deserve a medal.