Day 57: My journey TO obesity...

I've been thinking about how I got overweight, and of course it didn't happen over night. I was born with 'child-bearing' hips so my posterior has been a downfall for most of my life. I have a memory of being in Walmart with my mom, trying to pick out a new outfit for school and we went to the little girls section (because I was a little girl) to get me a dress. Yea, my mom made us wear dresses and skirts to school when we were younger. So anyways, we go to the section that we always did to pick out something and mom finds a dress she really likes so we grab a large and go to the dressing room. It doesn't fit. So she leaves me there and goes to grab the extra large. Still no luck. So with pain in her voice, she says, "I guess we're going to have to shop for you in the women's section". All I could remember thinking was, "I'm not a woman, why don't they make girls clothes in my size?" I knew I was 'chunky' but was it that big of a deal? I didn't really start putting on the weight until 3rd grade. And by 5th grade I was the biggest kid in class. I don't really remember a lot of bullying at all, until 5th grade. In fact, I only remember one and he was in 3rd grade and I had a crush on him, so it broke my heart that he started being mean to me!

In 5th grade we had moved to a new school district and I had made friends with a neighbor who just so happened to be in my class and was one of the popular kids. I wasn't popular though. But because of her, most of the time things were just fine. But the boys were evil. And they didn't care who your friends were. So one boy made up this nickname that just broke my heart. I HATED IT. And they taunted me for the rest of 5th grade and half of 6th grade, until my mom met my step-dad and they got married over Christmas break. So we moved to Bloomfield. A nice fresh start.

I don't know what went wrong when I got to Bloomfield, but it was like those kids already knew I wasn't cool. I made a few friends and things were ok most of the time. But, of course, there were a few boys that had to pick on me. I think I let a few kids make me think that everyone was against me so I didn't even try. I thought I was sooo much bigger than all the other kids and that's why try didn't like me. But looking back at pictures, it was true that I was bigger, but I wasn't THAT much bigger. It wasn't really until high school that I actually became obese. And when I graduated I was around 210 pounds. That just doesn't seem like its to bad looking at it from over 300 pounds! I really wish, at that point, someone would have given me a dose of reality, or a look at my future...SOMETHING to keep me from gaining ANOTHERh 140 pounds! It is just crazy for me to remember being in high school and feeling how I actually look now. Bigger than anyone else in school. I wasn't. But I felt like I was. I was overweight, but not 300 pounds. Now I am...a little more than that actually...and is a decade later.

I am so glad that I made the decision to get this under control now, instead of waiting until I had a pile of health problems. It could be a whole lot worse. So at least I am doing it!

I have a lot of work to do for the Ironman competition which starts today. I really, really want to finish it in the two weeks. So I'm going to give it 100% and see what happens!!

Thanks for being there!
<3 Honor