My biggest fear is not being liked or perceived as a bad mom, or bad whatever it is I'm doing. I think I use my weight as kind of a shield against that. "They must not like me because they think I'm too fat."

But, at the same time, I really do love food. And, I'm not good at self restraint. It's something I'm really working on, in all aspects of my life. Why have one potato chip, chocolate bar, book, cat, swim suit, when you can have TWENTY! Stopping myself at a smaller portion or quantity is a muscle I'm building. Teaching myself to be satisied with just one, so I don't have to deny myself all of it. It's tough work. But, I'm getting there.

I am not sure why I am fat. I am going to say though that it is a mixture of different circumstances. I come from a long line of heavy people, I was bullied in grade school, my parents really limited the types and amounts of foods we were allowed to eat growing up so when I moved out and could control what I ate I didn't really understand moderation, I have suffered from depression and low self esteem, had five kids in 8 years and the list goes on. I am thinking about things differently now though. The other day when I got stressed out and frustrated I would have gone for a donut or sweet treat of some sort. This time the only thing I craved was a difficult and fast bike ride.

I'm fat for a few reasons. I was always an obese child. I grew up on fatty meats and creamy casseroles and a whole box of Mac and cheese everyday after school. My mom did not enforce good eating habits.she let me eat whatever and how much I wanted and only kept bad food in the house.When I got older I started to eat when I was depressed. I also love food. I enjoy eating. Unfortunately I have no self control (I'm working on that). Also I have an addictive personality

I have spend countless dollars figuring this out. I always knew that I was afraid of failure. I always failed at weight loss and figured if I didn't try then I wouldn't be disappointed. Boy, was I wrong. I'm still disappointed, but in a completely different way. I also knew that I ate my emotions because I didn't have the types of relationships where you could talk about real issues. Instead, my family proved love with food. If they couldn't be around to make me my lunch or dinner, then they'd at least buy me what I wanted to eat. My life was chaotic growing up and food provided some much craved normalcy. What I was surprised to realize was how my binge eating actually started as soon as I was born. We didn't have the healthiest food all the time growing up, but we always had vegetables or fruit with every meal and in the summers we had a huge garden, but I didn't realize how much food I sneaked, ate raw or frozen, hid, and ate in one sitting. I thought this started in high school. So I guess the short answer is...I'm fat because the behaviors that make you fat are more engrained in my brain than the healthy ones.

I used to hold onto a lot of anger. I used to think...why didn't my parents ever call me out on the fact that the family size Doritio bag only lasted an evening or that all the cheese was gone in 2 days? But I have to take responsibility. I felt guilty and ashamed when I ate all that stuff, which tells me I knew enough about nutrition then to understand that what I was doing wasn't healthy and wasn't helping me in the slightest. I'm fat because I let myself get fat, even when I knew better.