Introduction

"I wish I could have my 28 year old brain and my 21 year old body..."

"Put that down and stop eating."
"Why the fuck are you eating that?"
"Look at you... you're disgusting."
"Look how grossly obese you have become."
"Why do you continue to eat?"
"Its as simple as STOP EATING!"
"You've become so ugly."
"How can you stand to look at yourself."
"Don't you wish you could shower with your clothes on?"

Ahh. The quotes of an abuser. However, in this case the abuser is not my mother, my father, my boyfriend -- In fact, the abuser in this case is myself.

I am my own worst critic. Everyone tells me that I don't see what they see. But see, that's not the problem. They don't see what I see. They don't look in the mirror and have some 232 pound, double chinned, obese figure staring back at them.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It could be worse. But this, this here, is bad enough for me.

I feel uncomfortable in my own skin. I hate looking in the mirror and telling myself over and over again, you HAVE to wear make-up and make your hair look semi-perfect before you walk out of the house so that you can fool yourself into thinking that they might not notice the mass of lard you have become.

I hate leaving my home. Everyone is staring, at least it seems like they are. Especially when I'm with my boyfriend. He's so attractive and young, and well look at me. They're all laughing asking themselves -- "Why the hell is he with her? He could do so much better." At least, that's what I think they're doing.

I hate getting dressed. Nothing fits anymore. No matter what I do, I don't feel attractive anymore. It's either too tight or too big. I find myself wearing large tee-shirts to cover up, but the larger the clothes are -- the larger I look. I won't wear my tank tops anymore because everything just seems to pop out of them. And just when I do find a pair of pants that fits, I find myself having to tuck the rolls of stomach flab into the front of them. Do you know how ridiculous that looks?

Putting the food down sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. It's not that I have a compulsion to eat, I have a compulsion to punish myself. "Well if you're going to be fat, do it right." Don't get me wrong, I love to cook and eat. Carrot sticks are not my forte. But is there a happy medium somewhere?

So now it comes down to the decision. Am I going to continue to allow food to destroy the last ounce of self-esteem that I have left? Or am I going to prove to myself that I can take that plunge, drop the pounds and not only improve my physical being but my emotional being as well?

That question has been pondered since I gave birth to my last child. She's now a year old. Over a year I have been procrastinating.

Yesterday, I was diagnosed with Spinal Degenerative Arthritis. Not by any means, a death sentence. But the constant pain can be alleviated with losing weight in addition to some bone strengthening medication.

So now, I have mustered up the motivation to make a change. And in doing so, I am going to document this journey in order that I may revisit challenges I face so that I may remind myself why I don't want to be a 'fat girl' anymore.