Please welcome Amanda! Amanda is a local area blogger (in my area) that I have just recently become acquainted with and I just love her! This story hits so close to home for me. While not everything is exactly what happened to me, it is so close to my story and it just breaks my heart. I remember being that girl. I remember being teased. Please give Amanda your support.

I remember the first time I ever had my first moment of ‘disordered eating’. I was in second grade, and my family had just moved. I was more than halfway through the school year and not feeling terribly accepted at my new school. I recall my dad going to take a shower and my mom at work, and me sneaking a Little Debbie snack from the cupboard. I can’t remember why I didn’t just ask for one. I guess maybe I thought I would be turned down because I had just had a meal.

It is clear from my childhood pictures that this truly does mark the beginning of my eating problems. That year, my school picture portrays me as a heavy set girl. The following school year, I started at a different school. I don’t really remember any further teasing until I was in fifth grade, running half heartedly in gym class, being called “Mount Fuji” by one of my classmates. By seventh grade I had sworn off fast food and by eighth grade I was wearing away the grass around the perimeter of our one acre yard by running every night.

I believe by high school I had really started to do radical things to lose weight. I would avoid breakfast and eat half of a soft pretzel for lunch. I was still running on top of it, and at some point, my menstrual cycle stopped. I had days where I couldn’t stand how hungry I felt and would binge on peanut butter or ice cream. I recall that at some point I tried to purge what I ate, but lucky (if you can call it that) for me, I could never pull it off.

I reached a peak of weight my sophomore year, and then started walking on our treadmill every night my junior year. That, combined with working a part time job many nights of the week, kept me busy and my weight stayed pretty steady. I graduated from high school a size 12, and although I’m sure I had moments of wishing I was smaller, I think I was at least OK with my body.

In 2002, my fiancé, Jon, (who is now my husband) and I broke off our engagement and I moved out on my own. Then, in 2003, Jon was shipped off to Kuwait during the beginning of the war with his fellow Marines. Struck with sadness, stressed about his well-being, and trying to make ends meet as an adult out on her own for the first time, I ate. And ate. And ate. And drank some too. Slowly, slowly, the scale went up and my thighs rubbed together a little more. I didn’t feel good about myself, but I had food to drown out my feelings.

Jon had left in March and in September I had found out that he would be coming home soon. We had many conversations about getting back together, and I certainly did not want him coming home to see me at my highest weight ever. So, I went low carb. I lost 8 pounds and then I get tired of pork rinds and cheese (well, I mean, a girl never TRULY gets tired of cheese, but you know what I mean). In the Spring of 2004, I joined a gym and Weight Watchers with my friend.
I lost 23 pounds for a total loss of 31 pounds. I felt awesome. I was a size 6, a size I had never been in my life. I was exercising five days a week. I thought I had attained a healthy weight that I would be able to maintain for life.

SNORT.

I slowly gained. Then I lost weight again in 2008 using sparkpeople.com. Then I had trouble getting pregnant and gained the weight back. Got pregnant. Gained even more weight. Had the baby. Was 10 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Gained 10 pounds back.

And so, here I am. At my heaviest weight of my adulthood. In pondering my weight up’s and down’s, it has occurred to me that, if I lose weight again, this will be the third time in a decade that I have lost twenty pounds or more. And, while I float around on the internet all day reading about “curve acceptance” and loving your body, I have to tell you that I certainly don’t hate my body. It is strong and has made a beautiful baby, which I delivered sans pain meds. That gym membership that I obtained in 2004? I still have it and use it. The longest I’ve gone without exercising in the eight years that I’ve belonged to a gym was the 2.5 weeks after I delivered our daughter, and I’m awfully proud of that.

What I am not proud of is how my weight has impacted my stamina during the day and how, even though I do not have the self-hatred that I had as a teen, I call myself “fat” when I am tired and my jeans don’t fit. I certainly don’t want my daughter to grow up hearing those words. Nor do I want her to see me scarfing down the bag of chocolate chips when I’m upset. I want her to see my running in 5k’s, exercising at the gym, and having a healthy attitude about food, rather than using it as my emotion drowning drug.

Perhaps that is why I can’t face the scale this time around. All the other times that I have lost weight, I have been obsessive about weighing myself. This time? I just can’t look at it. I think part of it is that I’m losing inches but not the several pounds that I’m used to seeing when I start changing my eating habits. But I think another part of it is that I just can’t go through the self torture anymore. I either feel better or I don’t. I make good eating choices or not. I’m hoping that with the support I have with the Flab to Fit girls and with logging my food choices on sparkpeople.com that I can eat better, feel better, and be the best example to my daughter that I can be.

If you are interested in joining our Flab to Fab page or private group and/or sharing your story please let us know!!