What age did you start struggling with weight?

Since I was 11, when my parents got divorced.

Every weekend I would spend with my dad who wasn't the best cook, so I ate packaged foods. That became takeaways like mcdonalds and KFC, which led to a fattie teenager.

It's only at 23 that I am finally at a healthy BMI since starting my journey in January of this year.

I was a chunky kid all my life, just like the rest of my family, and that was because of diet. We're talking fried meat at every meal, piles of white rice, potatoes, and biscuits, and a token veggie that was either corn or something drenched in cheese sauce. I used to love it when my mom went on the Scarsdale diet simply because it meant I got a break from all the heavy food. In addition, my family has a history of hypothyroidism.

When I left for college, I eventually started dropping weight when I realized I didn't have to eat the things my family had always eaten and could load up on the fresh seafood, fruits, and veggies that are plentiful in Florida. I dropped down to about a size 10 at 5'7, which is still 'fat' according to most of the people around me. Then I started going through a rough time, found out that exercise helped with my mood, started getting compliments about weight loss, started actually counting calories, and then overdid it because Of Course I Did. I stopped when I met my current husband 8 years ago, settled into a reasonable 4-5 hours of exercise per week and 400-500 calories per meal, gained weight, and didn't care too much about it.

My weight started creeping up on me more than it should have, though. The thought of a thyroid problem did occur to me, but my doctor at the time pooh-poohed it, telling me that people who thought they were gaining weight because of a thyroid issue generally just needed to eat less and exercise more. It is true that a thyroid problem alone won't cause massive weight gain; my husband likes to eat out and grab fast food, and I went along with it about 30% of the time instead of cooking my normal healthy meals. My weight crept up from a low of about 105 during the bad period to 207 by the time I got married. I fluctuated about 10 pounds down, but never lower. That kept up for about 5 years.

Last year, I was thrilled to start my first year of law school on a full scholarship. I weighed about 200 pounds and didn't really care. I lost some weight initially because of the extra mile or so of walking I did every day while carrying heavy books, but the weekly stress-induced pit stop at Dairy Queen and the Wednesday drive thru run took their toll. Worse, I wasn't able to exercise anymore because I was just too tired. I'd get home, try to get going on the elliptical, and feel faint; then I'd try to crack open my books but was unable to make sense of the letters on the page. The only fix was a nap - usually two hours or more. That was when I realized there was something wrong, but got the same "eat less and exercise more" from my new doctor. Considering I'd come in worried about my energy levels and inability to concentrate, not even mentioning my weight, I finally figured out that maybe I needed to take matters into my own hands. In the meantime, my GPA was at a solid B - terrible by my standards, and low enough to keep me out of the top 10%. I went to an endocrinologist for a second opinion, who ran a full metabolic panel. He found several nodules in my thyroid and a massive increase in an antibody that essentially renders me hypothyroid. Two boxes of Synthroid later, I had my brain back and made the dean's list via a massive effort to catch up - but it still wasn't enough. I missed the top 10 by two places and lost my scholarship.

At an end-of-semester party in April, a friend posted a picture of me on Facebook that made me realize how bad I looked; I was around 203-204 pounds. I decided that since I had my energy back, I'd get back into a routine of exercising and healthy eating. I'm currently at 187, so I still have a long way to go, but there's a noticeable difference from how I looked 3 months ago. When I got my class schedule, I immediately set up my calendar not only for classes and study time, but for exercise - it helps me focus. Over the past month, I've added a flexibility workout right before bedtime to help me decompress. My hope is that I'll get my weight down enough not to give a bad impression on internship interviews and maybe salvage my chances of landing my dream job working for Southern Poverty Law or the EPA. It's a long shot, but I'm not going to give up, and I'm never going to take someone else's word about my health again.