I am a 28 year old woman living in the Northwest.  I had a wild few years in my early 20’s and am just now completing college.  I’m an aspiring writer and filmmaker and am also pursuing other artistic interests.  For the past year, I’ve been working on a political documentary about an incident that occurred in the town where I live, and am now (finally) getting it ready for the film festival tour and distribution.  Also this year, I started a web design and SEO business with my best friend, so now I’m my own boss!  I’m very happy with my life in general- I feel fulfilled, most of the time, I’m sober, I have wonderful friends, I’m dating around looking for a guy that isn’t bland and won’t eventually bore or aggravate me, I’m creatively satisfied. . . but I’m also very fat.  I wear a size 20 and I have for five years.

I was always a big, tall girl, in middle and high school, but not fat: I was very happy with my body at about a size ten or 12.  When I was a freshman in high school, I lost about 50 pounds of baby fat by doing virtually nothing but smoking pot and attending basketball practice.  I swam competitively, played varsity basketball (until I blew out my knee junior year) and was extremely active and healthy.  I like surfing, hiking, distance swimming and other outdoor activities.  I am a person that naturally loves to exercise and becoming as fat as I have has completely reshaped my idea of myself.  

     I started gaining weight when I was with my first serious boyfriend, John, when I was 20.  In hindsight, I can see that I was deeply unhappy in that relationship and had no outlet except drinking to excess and cooking elaborate meals for us.  He was powering through his life- graduating from college, saving money, writing songs, starting and disbanding a series of bands, erecting elaborate sound studios in our basement- and I was staying in my bathrobe all day, not writing or making stuff or seeking out interesting experiences; it was like he was blooming while I was shriveling up.  If I was to observe that behavior now, as a more fully formed adult, I would know that it was burgeoning alcoholism, deep depression and malaise, and a bad fit in the relationship and I should have fled immediately.  Instead, I stayed in the relationship, grew fat as a tick, and was subsequently devastated when HE left me.  After this blow, we proceeded to have a complicated, destructive relationship intermittently for the next five years, until I finally moved an hour out of town and he went to law school on the east coast.  During this time, I gained and lost the same 40 pounds three times, but the damage was already done.  I’m about 80-90 pounds overweight at this point and I feel like I’ve FINALLY made a decision to stop the damn stone from rolling down the hill.  I’ve been substantially or partially fat for all of my 20’s and I feel like it’s my last obstacle in building the kind of life I really want: I’ve quit drinking, am exploring my creative potential and have a not-abnormally-miserable dating life.  However, I don’t feel confident, I hate the way my clothes look, I want to coach basketball or swimming and I can’t do that as a fat girl, I want to feel comfortable in a bikini and in sexual situations (I’m sick of being a ‘lights off’ girl), I want to spend my 30’s feeling healthy and hot.  I am still a fairly avid exerciser, so my biggest struggles are going to be with portion control and making healthy food choices.  Since I make my own work schedule now, I have to amp up my work outs, month by month, and try to spend about two hours each day exercising.  I’d like to have the problem largely in hand by my 29th birthday in October.  8 months is a long time, the lions share of a pregnancy, and my life will have changed a lot by then (graduation, possibly grad school, my film’s distribution).  I will then have 1 year until my 30th, plenty of time to take down the remaining tonnage.  7 years of being fat is enough; whatever self-flagellating switch got tripped when I was 21, I’m ready to finally tug it all the way back to the OFF position.  

REASONS TO LOSE WEIGHT:

I’ll be adding to this list as I think of more diet inspirations.  

1: I want to live a long life; I don’t want to die from heart disease, diabetes or my inability to outrun a murderous maniac.  

2: I want to enjoy exercise again; working out feels so good but throwing a 250 pound body and big flappy boobs around a basketball court or an elliptical machine is less than enjoyable.

3: I want to raise my metabolism without smoking a pack a day.  

4: More enjoyable sex without the hideous stretch marks, cellulite and cringing, morbid shame.   

5: I want to get pregnant in the next seven years and when (and if) that happens, I want to have a healthy pregnancy.  

6:  I want to have a better vehicle for my fantastic sense of style: I have two closets full of fabulous purses and shoes and accessories, which don’t totally tie the room together as they should because I rarely ever deviate from my jeans, cardigan, black t-shirt uniform.  I want to wear dresses and blouses that don’t give me man-shoulders again, not to mention cute pants (because somehow all the chubby girl stores make hideous, fashion-backward clothes.  Always with the horrible cotton smock tops and the jeans and suits that are slightly less fashionable and sophisticated than their smaller counterparts).  

7:  I want to be able to swim a mile again.

8: I don’t want to feel embarrassed at family gatherings, work presentations or other public events.  

9: I want my mother to stop feeling as if I’ve failed her and she’s failed me.  

10:  I want to enjoy summertime again; swimming at the lake, camping, bathing-suit wearing etc., without feeling like everyone is disgusted by my blubbery white body.