i dont mean to depress anyone .... but sometimes i wonder i mean im happy that im on the road to doing something about my weight problems and all and kuddos to all of you who are on the road ... but sometimes i ponder it when i started i had a hundred and eight pounds to loose ... when someone is twentey pounds over weight it sounds and looks like a quite a bit ... how on earth did i ever allow myself to get this big ... a hundred and eight pounds less than my highest weight would put me at 150 and even thats not tiny i just think its realistic ..... i was not always heavy ... and i assume the majority of you where not .. why didnt we realize that we were gaining weight at an unhealthy pace and nip it at the begining when the number wasnt quite so daunting ?? i cant imagine when i saw the scale tipping 180 ... then 190 then 200 that i sat there and did nothing??

i dont know what i intended to get out of this post it was a random rant but it kinda crossed my mind alot recentley ...

I know how you feel. I used to be thin and just kept gaining a few pounds a year. What kills me now is that I am at 178 lbs and love it. When I got to this weight going up I felt horrible. But 235 lbs was much worse. If I had known then what I know now I would have not felt so bad about myself.

I actually think about this same thing all the time. I have no idea how it happened. When I see pictures of myself from last year, I think to myself, WOW! I was so big and didn't even know it. I also kick myself all the time because I feel like if I had started my journey sooner, I would be where I want to be already. I guess I try to focus on the fact that I am so proud of what I have accomplished and Im glad I am doing it now!

My mother had weight problems of her own, and she raised me to be chubby. I don't blame her for my weight problems, but I had an unfair start when I was being force fed milk as an infant even after I was full. She thought it was good to have fat babies. I wasn't raised in a house where my parents cooked healthy meals, I just ate what I found, or I just ate snacks until I got full. But even with that upbringing, I wasn't very fat (just chubby) until I was put on a medication that made me gain 90-100 lbs as an adolescent. Gaining that much weight demoralized me and made me extremely depressed. Depression made me a careless eater, not paying attention to what I ate. I was never really an emotional eater, just a mindless eater. Somewhere along the way, I somehow started to develop some self-esteem and love for myself. Then the weight began shedding off, once I said to myself that I deserved better and that my weight was keeping me down in social situations and putting me at risk for health problems. I also wanted to feel and look attractive too. I wanted the "You have such a pretty face but...." comments to stop.

I think noticing is a very different thing than doing something about it. I noticed! But change is hard.

I kinda wonder about that sometimes... it is weird to think I don't have much of an answer really. I guess I feel like I was depressed about some things... trying to block out life... and sleepwalking through my days. One day I woke up, looked in the mirror, and didn't recognize myself.

Ditto! I feel exactly the same way! I felt horrible at 165 pounds, and was so depressed. When I reached my highest weight (231), I would die to be 165 again! I was a size 12 back then, but will probably be a size 10 now with vanity sizing, and I would love to get back there.

But I am happy that I've been making much needed changes, better later than never!

I used to say if I ever hit 200 lbs I'd stop eating. Well I did hit over 200 and that didn't happen since I ballooned to 235...

I really don't know what happens to each of us- but looking back there were many factors that contributed to my weight gain. Not taking care of my medical condition, cooking bad foods and eating out a lot to make my husband happy (cuz he was a steak/potatoes guy), not exercising because of the fatigue from my condition, etc.

My life has turned around a lot since I started going to the doctor more, figuring out what was wrong, researching my condition, and so on, I know 2010 is going to be my year now

I have a different answer. It is not from lack of trying that I got this heavy.

I yo-yo-ed through the teen years, but was able to manage myself under a size 12. 12 was my high. Then I got married and just prior to getting married I started taking BC. From there, I could not drop a pound, not matter what I tried. I kept steadily gaining until I got pregnant. After pregnancy I nursed and thought surely I'd drop the pounds because nursing helps with that. Not so. I continued to gain. Then my second son came along as quite the happy little surprise! I have not been able to lose the weight since.

We tried to conceive a third but I hadn't had a period in nine months. That's kind of a problem when TTC. My wise doctor told me it was early menopause at the ripe old age of 30. A second opinion told me I had PCOS. Much research later I thought the only way I could lose weight was through low carb dieting. This worked, but too slowly for my impatient self.

Long story short (because my family is waiting for me) losing weight is HARD for women with PCOS. It's not impossible...but it's HARD! I think a woman with PCOS has to be armed with lots and lots of knowledge about how her body works.

I was a skinny little thing until the doctors put me on medicine after medicine full of steroids for my asthma. I then became a chunky child. Add to that my Mexican grandparents who gave me all that lovely carb laden, greasy amazing Mexican food... which also became my comfort food because going to my grandparents house was also my refuge from the insanity of my parents homes so eating became safety to me in a way. Then add to that two illnesses between the ages of 17 and 20 that nearly killed me... and then a drug problem that was an offshoot of the depression I'd been developing.... and yeah. Bam. 250lbs.

Not to mention I honestly had NO idea what it meant to eat healthy. I mean.. the way I'm eating now and losing and becoming healthy... *shakes head*... I didn't have a freakin clue. Honestly.

Even now as I am 300+ I still see the 250ish me when I look in the mirror. I kinda "block out" how big I've become. It's not until I look at a picture - and I don't let many of those come by often - that I really realize HOLY CRAP! I am so friggin fat.

EXAMPLE, here's a picture where I was around 240-250, followed by a photo that was taken just last Sunday at approx 318.

Just looking at this picture starts to make me feel really depressed. But instead of sulking and pitying myself, I'm going to go hit the Wii Fit. LATER.

Oh, but before I go, a little about my history. I had never really been thin, but I was never super fat either until around my senior year of high school when I got to around 245. After I graduated my weight just continued to climb. I went into 7th grade - 132 / 8th grade - 160/170 / 9th grade 180 / 10th grade 200 / 11th grade 220 / 12th grade 240 / college freshman 250 / college soph 265 / following year 275 / then went up to 280...290...315... lost about 40lbs back to around 275, gave up and gained it all back and then some to 328. And now here I am.

BUT over that period of 12 years I steadily gained weight EVERY year. There wasn't really a time where I ever maintained. I don't know how to do anything but gain weight it seems. I'm not sure if I have any health issues relating to it, but it's definitely been a struggle. I tried to lose weight a few times but gave up easily when I didn't see any results. Since 2006 I've been trying to lose weight off and on, but definitely trying a lot more than I did when I was younger.

I do wish that when I was in high school I didn't throw myself a pity party all of the time and actually try to change my situation instead of feeling helpless... I would have had a lot less to lose. But on the plus side, I'm s till quite young and have a lot of life ahead of me that I want to spend THIN(er)! If I only get down to 150, then I think I would be happy with that. I'm still not sure that I'm meant to be a very thin person. I have huge feet and very large wrist/fingers, even when I was thinner. Though it's hard to say because when I was thinner I was also a child, and now I am an adult.

Anyway, enough of my novel, and off to exercise. I think I'm going to do an hour today instead of 30 minutes. I'm feeling a little pumped! I'm trying to channel this into something positive. I can do this!!

Great attitude! You go girl!

Depression. That's how I got here. When I gave my psychiatrist (sp) a description of my family, he said he could see depression in all of us, that it was hereditary, and that I might have to be on anti-depressants for life.

Added to that, junk food was my only "friend" growing up.


Added to that, I just didn't care. When I look in my mirror, I don't see myself as fat as I am. But, show me a picture and WOW. My therapist pointed out that the way I grew up could be described as a form of neglect (emotional); don't know if I agree with that, but if it's true, I'm still continuing the trend. Really I'm just starting to think that I am worthy of being healthy and happy.

That's how I got here.

That's such an important question to be able to answer.

I think my weight is highly correlated with my depression (though sometimes it's a chicken and egg thing - which came first? I know I certainly feel better thinner...).

All I know is that I stopped caring about myself and sought out comfort and numbing in the only place I knew where to find it - food. Then I layered on the denial, where I simply looked the other way because I didn't want to give up the food since it felt like all I had that made me "happy". God, that sounds so pathetic when I see it in writing, but there it is.

Only the sheer panic of realizing what I had done to myself snapped me out of it.