My Story, The Beginning

MY STORY!

I was a healthy, active child. Up until about 11 years old I never thought about being fat. It never entered my mind. I just played and ate and was happily oblivious. Then one day, as I was grabbing a piece of bread for a snack, my Dad came by and said, "If you eat that you might get fat!" Being a sensitive, self-conscious child, 2 things happened to me with this comment. "Sneak eating" became established and I began to think that I was a possible fat person.

At this point my weight was not affected. I was still a very active healthy child.

At age 12 until age 18 one of the jobs that was assigned to me was the dinner dishes. Our family ate fast and then they left the table to go watch TV. I was left to do the dishes by myself. My companions were the dishes and the left overs. I think I stayed at the table a little longer than I needed because I was not anxious to get up and start the dishes. In my boredom I developed the habit to eat more than I needed.

I have one brother 2 years older than me with a dominant personality. We fought a lot and I felt that he hated me. It also just happened that the boys in the neighborhood were my age but his friends. So I just assumed that they hated me too. Therefore I developed a attitude about myself that said, "I am not attractive to men."

Then around age 16 my Dad said one day, "If you would just lose 10 pounds you would be perfect!" Now I was painfully aware of my imperfection and was confirmed that something was wrong with me.

Life still continued looking unaffected on the outside. Through high school I was involved in dance, gymnastics, water ballet, cheerleading, and various other activities. Looking back I realize that I was so active that I could eat what I wanted and not gain weight. My life was so busy, so I didn't have a lot of time to eat.

Underneath though I had a cancer that was beginning to eat away at me. I didn't feel great about myself. I felt unattractive, and I felt that if I could just lose those 10 pounds I would finally be perfect. I thought that the weight was why I didn't feel attractive.

In the summer before my senior year, I went to a gymnastics camp. Gymnastics was the love of my life. It was also a world of tiny girls. I was 5 foot 9 inches. I believe that through the size difference I became even more self-conscious. On the way home from camp a friend introduced me to the Atkins Diet. I had never been on a diet before. I was excited about this though because I felt I had my answer. I was excited because I didn't feel that I needed self discipline because I could eat as much protein as I wanted. It seemed so easy. I followed it for a few weeks and lost a few pounds. I got sick of it quickly and went back to my old way of eating and gained the weight back plus a little bit more. It was my first yo yo!

Life continued with an extremely busy senior year. The next year I decided to go to a college and pursue being a physical education major.

When I got to college I tried out for and made the gymnastics team. We worked out 3 hours a day 5 days a week. Despite this I gained the freshman 10 pounds by Christmas. When I got home I was discussing this with a friend who advised, " you are good at gymnastics and could be really good if you would just lose weight." With that comment there rose within me a determination to finally do just that.

This time I read an article about a 1000 calorie diet. I was not very well educated about diets and it looked good to me. So I set out on this perfectionist journey of eating. I also added to my 5 days a week gymnastic workout by running 3 miles per day. The weight started to drop, I was improving my gymnastics and started to believe that I had arrived at almost perfection. I actually lost the 10 pounds that I thought that I should lose to be perfect by about March.

I didn't understand at the time, but I realize now that I was starving my body and it was going into starvation mode. My mind was like someone deprived of food at a prison of war camp. All I could think of was food. I went to bed dreaming about the small meal I would have the next morning. I left breakfast thinking about lunch. I had a hard time concentrating on school. The most significant thing that happened to me during this time is I realized that I lost the weight but that I didn't feel any different about myself. Worse still, I didn't feel that people (more importantly men) perceived me any differently than before. I can remember where I was when I realized this. A sadness and hopelessness settled into me. Even though I had good friends during this time, I did not share any of this with anyone.
My story is continued in the next post labeled REACHING THE BOTTOM.