For the first 10 years of my life I lived with my mother and sometimes my father. We stayed in one town/city never longer than 6 months…well sometimes a year. I was a tall, slender and active child. I remember getting my first bra in the 3^rd grade and I seem to have always been rather “well-endowed” in that area. The problems started when I was 11 years old. My parents finally divorced, and I spent the better half of that next year just trying to survive emotionally. My mother didn’t have time to coddle me, because she hadn’t worked in 17 years and needed to prepare to re-enter the work force.

My mother was an extremely thin young woman, all the way up until she had her first child, my older brother. She never had more than 99 lbs on her 5’4” medium framed body. After she had my brother she had no difficulties returning to previous emaciated state. She boasts that at 27 when she had me she never surpassed the 160 lbs. mark… good for her.

When I entered 6^th grade I was already 5’3” and I still weighed less than 110 lbs. My mother was somewhat pleased with this, and even though she was overweight herself at this point, she would always make it a point to comment that I weighed more than she did at 19. She had visions of me as a model, if only I could shed a few pounds…boy did I ever disappoint. I was still only 12 years old, but the cycle had already begun. After my parents divorce my mother no longer had time to encourage the extra-curricular activities that had previously kept me active and so the majority of my time was spent cooped up watching television and taking care of my 9 year old little sister. This usually meant I would make spaghetti or Rice-a-roni and that would be our nutritional intake while at home. When I wasn’t making my spaghetti my mom was making something equally fattening and usually smothered as that is how we Southerners do it. In less than 1 year I packed on 40 lbs and that number would triple by the time I graduated from high school.

I graduated from high school at 5’7.5” (and for the purposes of this site I will just say 5’7”) and a whopping 235 lbs… What a disappointment I was to her… and not only her… My father wouldn’t directly say anything to me about it but I knew it was there. On my weekends at his house he would always comment on my portion sizes and clothing sizes… I sort of wish my mother had taken to controlling my portion sizes at 11 so maybe I never would have grown to be this way… In a family of thin people, my sister and I stood out as the obese, and therefore the ugly. My grandfather commented on it one day in a conversation that will forever burden my heart.

Now here I am about 4 years out from graduating high school and currently at 260 lbs… I am constantly bombarded with non- compliments from my mother that “I would be so beautiful if only…” What she doesn’t get is that I UNDERSTAND that I am unhealthy, but it isn’t as easy as all that. I have an addiction. I am addicted to food. I will get second helpings just because it tastes good, regardless of whether I am still hungry. Why doesn’t she understand? At 180 lbs. she is obese TOO!!

Anyway. I am not doing this for her. I am doing this for ME, because honestly… I no longer want to hear “if only…”.

My current stats are as follows. 
Highest weight: 287 lbs when pregnant (September 2006) BMI 45 
Current weight: 261 lbs BMI 41 
Goal weight: 135 lbs BMI 21.1

That would be a total weight loss of 126 lbs. I can do it!!

So I am going to give myself a couple years… I took me 10 years to get this large, I imagine even with the lap band surgery it will take a few to shed them.