Each of the pictures above are of me… at various times in my life… from the ages of 12 to 34.  In none of those pictures was I happy with my body image… or with my relationship with food.

As with ALL people who have had a “food fight” in their lives, I look back at several and think, “What was I thinking?”

My food fight started when I was VERY young.  I remember family parties and h’ors deouvres.  I’m thinking I was probably around five or six?  I remember my mom telling me to wait until guests got there.  I remember disapproving looks as I’d reach for my 565th cheese and cracker.  I wanted ALL of it!  I had an unfillable hole…  and I just couldn’t stop eating…. ever…

When I was nine, I remember my first diet.  I put myself on it.  I brought a can of tuna fish to school every day.  I never liked tuna fish… not then, not now… but I decided that was how I was going to be thin.  You see, by the time I was nine, I was bullied quite a bit.  I was already wearing a bra and boys would snap it.  Being well endowed never makes you look thin… especially when you’re trying to cover them up all the time.  My mom took me to my first nutritionist at my request.  We went through diet plans there.  It worked, for awhile.

Mom did her best.  There was never anything but healthy snacks in the house.  We had plenty of celery and apples.  But I didn’t want that.  And my parents were at work when I came home from school when I was in middle school.  So I’d bake…  I’d bake pans of cookies and eat ALL of them.  I’d make loaves of bread— quick breads, and breads with yeast.  I’d slather butter on them and eat the entire loaf…  hating myself and what I was making myself look like more and more… but not stopping.

The next weight loss came after I broke my femur.  I was in the hospital for five weeks and at home in a hospital bed for five weeks after that.  I was completely bed-ridden…  and COULDN’T get to food… so my mom was in charge of my intake.  I specifically remember her giving me one M and M at a time… and I could have about ten.   HA!   I wouldn’t mind someone doing that to me today!   So, I dropped three pants sizes in those two months!

At the end of 8th grade, I went to my first diet “program.”  It was at Diet Center.  I rode my bike up there by myself to meet with a counselor.  I ate nifty things like beef heart.  My mom prepared it for me… and it worked…

because all diets work…  including the one I did in college…. the one LOTS of girls did in college.  In college I discovered the art of vomiting and laxatives.  I fluctuated between 218 pounds and 244 pounds through all of college… so, clearly, it didn’t work THAT well.  I went on fat free diets, and 1000 calorie a day diets.  I worked out ALL the time.  I taught aerobics classes.

All this time I mostly surrounded myself in silence.  I was BASICALLY happy… but I was fat… and teased… and it led to ALL of the things it usually does for fat girls.  I had no REAL love interests in my life, but I did things and allowed things to be done to me that I wish I hadn’t because of my self confidence… or lack of… with my weight.  Some people who I considered my closest friends were hurtful to me when it came to my weight… thinking they were helping.

As I reached true adulthood, things got completely out of my control.  For breakfast at work, I’d have two kolaches.  For lunch, I had a slice of pizza and fries.  On the way home from work, I’d stop at McDonald’s.  There, I would buy a double quarter pounder with cheese, a six piece McNugget and a GIANT fries…  this was bigger than a supersize.  It was a large drink container full of fries.  I ate this before I got home…  When I got home, I would order a large pizza AND eat the whole thing.  This was a typical day.  I went into debt because of food… and I ballooned to 356 pounds.  Sometimes I’d still have bulimic episodes, but I wasn’t committed. (ha).

It had to stop.  I was 32 years old and completely out of control.  I went to Methodist hospital and entered a program where I could only have 800 calories a day.  It was four shakes… NO food.  And I did it for seven months… and lost over 170 pounds.  Sure, my hair fell out, my gallbladder got removed, and I couldn’t poop… BUT I felt great.  I’m not kidding.  I felt excellent.  Now, I could shop in regular clothes stores– this was actually anxiety producing and overwhelming to me.  I had NEVER been able to shop in regular stores in my ENTIRE life.  How do people do that?

And the SKIN… oh my goodness the skin… I couldn’t wear shorts, really… or sleeveless because it was just EVERYWHERE…  giant curtains of skin…  Part of me thinks that’s why I gained back most of the weight…  but, in reality, I know…  I know it’s because of my food fight…

Because it started again.  I’d join weight watchers… and then leave.  I’d do the cabbage soup diet, then stop.  I’d work out seven days a week… I’d workout none… My food fight had started again.

This time… I had an accomplice.  I’d met my husband when I was a size 10.  But… together I had shown him the great “joy” of ordering the large pizza AND the cheesy bread.. and that it was perfectly normal for each of us to eat half of it.  I had shown him if HALF a cheesesteak was good… well, then a whole one was much better.  Now, he was no little guy when I met him… but I helped him balloon on up with me.

What he didn’t know is that I had started it again.  I had started sneaking to Whattaburger on the way home… I’d grab one little cheeseburger before I walked in the door because I was so hungry…  If I went out with a friend after dinner, I’d go ahead and order food again.  I mean, what my friend didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him…And the 20 pounds I had gained back turned into 100… turned into 150… and there I was…  losing my food fight again…

I post this because it’s real.

I post this because it’s deep and personal and embarrassing.

I post it because I’m not the only one.

This was not just a matter of willpower.  This was something deeper…  some pit for some reason that I have never been able to fill in my entire life.

This is not a battle I will ever stop fighting.  I will ALWAYS want to eat the cheeseburger AND the whole pizza.  I will always want the loaf of bread with the butter all over.

But it’s over.

I’m not going to do that anymore.

It never brought me the happiness that it promised.  It lied to me the whole time… That trance like state I’d go into as I was binging was never a time of happiness.  It was always shame and regret.  And it’s over.

I know that I’ll have to fight it forever… but I also know that I have already won.