Near as I can recollect here's my weight progression. I think the years and timing are off but this is the basic progression, anyway...
Back in 1998 I weighed about 270 pounds. I had no energy, I was listless, I felt sick, I ate fast food three times a day sometimes, super-sized meals. The big thing, though, was having no energy. It was hard to even keep the house clean and take out the trash, I was so exhausted all the time.
At the end of 1999 I was diagnosed with severe anemia, which is why I was so listless. I went to a great nutritionist who had wonderful advice. I got my iron levels up, and learned more about nutrition, and made healthier choices. I also was frustrated with my job at this point and decided to ride the exericse bike whenever I was mad. Boy did I ride a lot!
Basically I flipped my life around, ate totally different, exercised, moved to a new city, transferred offices at work, hung out with a new circle of friend.
Toward the end of 2000 I was losing well. I decided to start eating vegetarian, because of my little sister. Things were exciting and new, I was jogging. I got down to about 170 pounds. I was no longer so frustrated at work, my iron levels were up so I had energy, I had a great circle of friends.
Then in 2001 I was stuck. I hovered between 165-175 forever. Things were still going well, but I was getting frustrated. I felt in a rut. Work stress was returning. I went to see a counselor for work stress and depression. It helped -- a little. I went on a big vacation by myself to Europe that was fun. I went to water parks and beaches. However, I'm 5'2", and my ideal weight range was around 120-135 or something, I think. I was still classified as obese. I began to despair that I'd ever be anything
but obese. Now, this was even though I was eating healthy, was active outside, could run a 5K (not fast, but I could and did run it), and so on. I was smaller than before, it was better, but all I saw was the failure and I started feeling so big, even at the same weight. Slowly, the weight started coming back on.
2002 the weight started slipping back on quicker. It was a combination, I think, of work stress and frustration, and the feeling that if I was never going to be 'not obese' then oh well, I give up. I have ingrained patterns of eating food for comfort, and so I did. Where I was frustrated and stressed, I found solace in food. It tasted good -- if only briefly. It was my treat to myself.
In 2003 the pounds continued to mount. I was probably up to about 210-220 at the beginning of the year. I was really frustrated at work, which spiralled things. I decided to quit my job. I changed my mind. I took a 3-month sabbatical from work, decided to move cities again back to where I was originally was, and then blew my house down payment to travel around the world in style for 2 months -- business class international, swanky hotels, safaris, etc., etc. I still don't know my budget but it was probably about $13,000-$15,000 when it was all totalled. (And I don't regret the trip, it was amazing, but that's another story). I came back to work in the fall of that year, but by then was up to about 240ish.
After that was a period of rapid weight gain, from the fall of 2003 to the summer of 2004, up to about 280 which is where I ended up. That was me frustrated more with life, and I wasn't taking my iron so my anemia came back full force and I had no energy, I was depressed, I'd eat, I started binging on junk food -- still vegetarian mostly but you can eat a lot of chocolate and jelly beans and cheese and stuff that's mostly vegetarian. Every now and then I'd decide to eat healthier -- this lasted about a week, tops.
So then in summer 2004 -- well, I'm not sure what happened. I finally hopped on a scale in the bathroom at work, one of those sliding weight scales, not to weigh precisely but to check to see if I topped 300 pounds. I didn't. That was my fear, so it was a little better seeing I was at least below that. Size 28 pants were starting to get tight and I always shopped at Lane Bryant, and wasn't sure where to get size 30, so that was a big motivator.
Then I got moved fulltime to this project at work that's based, partially, in Baghdad. People go over there for 1-3 months to work on it. I sort of want to go (just for the adventure mostly -- I do things like skydive and rockclimb and stuff for adrenaline rushes -- and partly to help out with the project), sort of don't (because it's scary), but I didn't really have an option because I'm so big. And external factors are always better, for me, for motivating weight loss and change. It's like I can't just take care of myself for me. It has to tie into something else.
So I'm about 4-5 weeks into things now, which is longer than I stuck with eating healthier for a while. I'm trying to concentrate on little things at first, not everything all at once. I'm not even worrying about exercise, and I might not at all until next year, since I'm not motivated right now and making a ton of changes all at once that I don't absolutely want to do is always a recipe for disaster for me. My goal was to eat healthier, take my iron to get the anemia under control, and try to feel better. To try to break the pattern of my eating before, and help with anemia and other vitamin deficiencies, I started eating meat again. (I love making changes, incidentally, to stir things up in my life -- thus the vegetarian/non-vegetarian swaps, the trips, the moving around and changing offices.) And I do feel better eating healthier. I was literally feeling sick all the time before and I'm probably still depressed, still not entirely happier at work, but it's better and I think the healthy regime has a lot to do with it.
Right now I'm struggling with frustration. It seems like such a daunting goal, and one I've struggled with before and lost, so why try again. Which is why I'm trying to ignore weight and just eat healthy but I'm competitive, and can't resist the scale like I tried. I love my clothes starting to feel loose, though, and I love the healthier feeling I have from eating more nutritious. I'm hoping a combination of that, and small losses, and the thought of maybe going to Baghdad or else on another international trip where I'm a bit smaller, will be a driving factor. It's just so daunting to thing: "If I lost a pound a week, I'd have to do this for 3 years before I was at my goal weight." Three years is a really long time, a tenth of my life. So it's daunting.
So a long ramble but that's how it happened.