Long story and in need of some encouragement

I grew up in a family of tall, very thin, eat anything they want without paying much mind people.

That's not me. Not even a little bit.

At 5'6" I'm between two to five inches shorter than most of the women in my family (exceptions being my mom who's my height, and the ladies who married in). When puberty hit instead of gaining inches up, I gained inches out. Mostly hips and boobs. My standard of beauty was my mom and her sisters, who were all long and lean, without much of a dip between their waists and hips. I currently have a 33" waist and 45" hips. At my fittest 27" waist, 39" hip. I hate buying pants.

I developed a serious allergy to chlorine that forced me to quit swim team at 14, then suffered a foot injury which limited the kinds and amount of activities I could enjoy until my 20's, when I finally had corrective surgery.

Working 40-60 hours a week, going to college, eating crap, and drinking a lot of soda my weight steadily crept up. In 2004 at the age of 27 I weighed 208 lbs. I felt grotesque at family events.

A bunch of ladies in the office where I was working joined Weight Watchers and convinced me to join too. I tracked my points, started going on more walks, stopped drinking soda and juice, and started drinking more water. I lost 25 lbs fairly easily, and joined a gym. My weight-loss stalled shortly after, because I became too active for the WW calculation.

I dropped WW and joined CalorieKing. I tracked my CICO diligently. Took martial arts, started to run, and began to do regular strength training. My weight moved steadily down. I lost another 38 lbs. I felt fantastic. I could run a sub 30 5k (28:59 is still sub 30). I could do 25 push-ups. I could aaalllllmost do an unassisted pull-up.

Then in December of '05 a group of "concerned friends" confronted me publicly at a large social event, in front of about 50 witnesses, and accused me of having an eating disorder and of being "too thin". I weighed 146 lbs, and had set 140 as my goal weight. The intervention was also taken online to one of the internet communities I was a part of, where another 100 people saw it. Photo is from around that time.

My partner was largely unsupportive and gaslit me by defending the people who confronted me. I stopped talking to him about my goals.

Over the following few months my weight fluctuated between 145 and 150, depending on how I was doing with my logging and activity. My weight stabilized at the 150 mark, and I continued to be active but felt a lot of insecurity about keeping a food journal anymore, because the justification that the people who confronted me used was that I kept a food journal in the first place.

In 2007 I changed jobs, got a divorce, and totaled my car. I relied on my bike and walking to get me where I needed to go. My weight wavered between 150 and 155 depending on time of the month, and how many errands I'd had to run that week.

In 2010 I got a car again, stopped cycling so much, didn't make up for it at the gym, and had my job title change. My work responsibilities went through the roof, and I went from regularly working 40-45 hour weeks to 50-70 hour weeks. I had that job for another 5 and a half years.

My weight crept up.

When I finally changed jobs in January of 2016, I was excited. I'd moved to a job that would allow me a better work/life balance, which would (my hope was) allow me to refocus on health and fitness. Two days before I started my new job, I fractured my right ankle badly enough that I was in a cast for 12 weeks. Recovery took the better part of 18 months because of the severity of the surrounding soft tissue damage, I sprained, strained, and partially tore almost every tendon and ligament in my ankle. When I mess up, I don't mess around.

Between May of '16 and July of '17 I got laid off twice. I was trying to get more activity by walking, but was limited by what my ankle would allow.

After two years my ankle is strong enough again to allow me to be more physically active. I have a better job. I joined the local Y. I've been going to spin class, swimming again (yay UV filtered pool), and meeting with a trainer to help me get on track.

In January 10, 2019 my weight was 192.5, today it's 184. I want to lose 44lbs and FINALLY get to my goal by my 41st birthday in September. I hope I can do this. It's hard though, I have a lot of feelings of shame for allowing myself to get back to this point. I know better. I know how to keep a food journal, track my calories, have goals, the dangers of using food as rewards. I could have avoided some or all of this, and pure laziness and apathy got in the way.

Has anyone else experienced those feelings, and how do you manage them?