My Personal Experience with Being Overweight

As far back as I can remember I was overweight. I was overweight as a baby, as a toddler, as an adolescent, as a preteen, as a teenager and even into adulthood. I always said is wasn't my fault I was just born this way. I felt I was never given a chance and that my metabolism is just slower than others. Growing up with my sister was difficult. She was always the thin one and I was always the chubby one. She could eat anything she wanted but if just looked at food I would gain weight. Summer camp was was the worst experience of my life. I was the fat kid. I wasn't obese or anything like that I was just chubby. Everyone was skinny and I was chubby. I started to turn to food for comfort. I was also a latch key kid and would come home and go through a half gallon of chocolate ice cream right out of the container. This made me happy, my favorite hobby. Afterwords I would hate myself for doing it. It made me feel worse. I didn't make myself throw up or anything like that. I would just be so angry with myself for the rest of the night. In my adult years now, I still do this except not with ice cream, with other foods.

When I was in Junior High and High School all of my friends were skinny. Everyone either took dance lessons or went to gymnastics. Not me. I was the chubby one who took piano lessons. This really didn't help with my self esteem. Oh did I forget to mention that I also have curly hair that I couldn't control? Needless to say Junior High and High School were not exactly my shining points in life. Things started to change when I started College. I think I was so nervous about going away to school that I ended up losing weight. I started feeling good about myself. I noticed I was starting to get attention from the opposite sex and it was nice. I never really dated much before, I was too shy. I ended up having a nice College experience. Much better than Junior High and High School.

After College I tried to keep my weight under control but it wasn't easy. I was living alone and unfortunately dating the wrong guy. I found myself turning to food once again for comfort. I must have gained 20 pounds in that very unhealthy relationship. I was depressed, very depressed. The more I ate, the more I gained, the more I gained, the more I ate. It was a vicious cycle that I was caught up in. I stayed this way for almost two years but I knew that things needed to change.

I took back control of my life. I broke up with the unhealthy relationship and signed up for a gym membership. Two to three nights a week I would take step aerobics and run on the treadmill. I discovered that I enjoyed running so much that I started running on the boardwalk at my local beach. I was running up to three miles a day. I felt great. I finally felt healthy again. I was able to keep this up for about a year but I soon faced a new problem.

My new problem was that even though I lost all of this weight I didn't see myself thin. My family and friends would tell me not to lose anymore weight. They said I was getting too thin but I just didn't see it. To this day I still have this problem. I am married to a wonderful man. I have the sweetest baby boy who just turned two years old. I have a beautiful home that we just built. So why do I struggle with my self esteem everyday? It is exhausting. From the time I wake up in the morning to the time I go to bed, I worry. I won't even take a shower if I just ate. The biggest problem is that I can't be intimate with my husband if I am feeling fat that day. It is an ongoing struggle. My husband tells me how beautiful I am everyday but I just turn it around and make a joke out of it. I tell him he has to say that because he is my husband.

I know that there are others out there who are suffering with this same issue. I just hope one day I can be happy with me, inside and out. And I hope you can too.