Bouncing off a FB post - how old were you when you went on your first diet?

 I've got you all beat by a mile.....

My very first diet happened at 6 weeks old.  My pediatrician was concerned that I never lost a freaking ounce after birth.  I was a breast fed baby and the doc told my mom to start replacing at least one of my feedings with a bottle of water.  Well, we know how well that worked.....

I was 2 when I learned the meaning of the word obese.  My uncle told me I was obese and I didn't know the word.  I was at a family gathering with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins when I went in the kitchen and asked my mom what it meant.  In front of everyone.  To this day, I remember how bad I felt.

And it only went downhill from there.

Oh, Gosh.  Parentally enforced efforts pobably began (and royally backfired) by age five or six?  I was on RX drugs probably by age 10.  (Thyroid but also speed.)   Worked for awhile.   But my doctor visits eventually fell by the wayside.  I did not know then that I must take thyroid every day for my whole life.   Was not back on it until my mid thirties and the damage was done.  It was too late.

Sigh!

I was 9.  I had put on about 5 stone over the year and was wearing adult clothes (hideous old lady clothes my mother bought and insisted I wear).  I was put onto a diet plan called the Rainbow diet and saw a dietitian three times a week for four months.  I lost three stone and then regained it once the celebration wore off.  By then my Mum had lost interest and I was permitted to get even fatter but the punishments got worse.  I was not allowed to see friends or go out of the house turning to food for comfort and not going to school.  This is where the compulsive eating kicked in.

I then gained huge amounts of weight and was subjected to daily humiliation by the nut jobs that came to my Parents house for their psychic fairs and for their meditation circle.  They would send me healing to help me lose weight.  I would get counseling from them which consisted of blaming me for the life I had due to my karmic debt.

At age 11 I discovered trucker tablets and was taking pseudoephidrine tablets x4 a day.  I lost about 4-5stone of my excess weight.  My mother was less then happy with my transformation and refused to buy me new clothes despite not fitting anything I owned and marched me off to a discount shop for the over 50's.  What she made me wear made The Amish look modern.  I swear it was insane but when that didn't stop me going out hiking and meeting up with friends.  She cut off my hair and permed it so I looked like I'd been electrocuted, you know short back sides and curly top perm.  I was ******g mortified.   Luckily for me one of my best friends was a trans-genderist in the making and Jaye and I would whip things up on the singer sewing machine.  Drag queens literally saved my bacon.  My hair grew out.  I dried it straight every day.

In response I stole money from her purse and bought more ephedrine tabs called "medislim" and lost even more weight.  Things got pretty bad at school as I looked like a freak amongst the body conscious teens and I was pretty much totally isolated for the next two years.  Clothes shouldn't mean anything but when you stand out as a freak then there isn't any respite for the abuse that follows.  I was still about 5 stone over weight despite using slimming tablets.

My Brother returned from Taipei and was recovering from drying out from heroin.  In the meantime he was actually kind and sweet to me and seemed to enjoy my take on the world.  He also owned amazing, exotic stuff and I would steal hi***** shirts, jeans and brothel creepers. I became fairly cool in an outsider kinda way and Mommy Dearest lost a bit of leverage. I had also stopped taking Medislim because the licensing authority make it illegal to sell it over the counter.  I had made friends and found my niche at school and outside.  I got a part time job and loved the people I worked with. I had friends.

I piled on the weight as food was now a celebration. I was also in puberty. I was sent to two more dietitians and when that didn't work I was left to my own devices. I started to habitually diet. In total I have been on over 77 diets long term since the age of 9 and abused over the counter slimming tablets.

By the time I was 17 years old I was using speed and acid pretty much three times a week. I would have awful come downs and not eat for days so I dropped down to a size 10.  This cycle went on for years and depressing years. My sister was also addicted to speed and was a skeletal size 0 for a few months.

My mother is still obsessive about my weight. She woke from life saving cardiac surgery and the first thing she did was look at me and vomit (didn't take it personally) then tell me I had put on weight.   Since I've lost my excess weight my mother has become obsessed about her weight and is now a size 4.  Oddly she is nice to me when we speak and seems like a helpless old woman now not a dragon under the bed.

Weight has me so ****** up I have to re-learn how to exsist in this world in a state of peace.  I am used to being under seige and now my fat shield doesn't work any more.

Ug....hard one to write.

SO hard to write.    I remember once when I was seeing a therapist to help me with the emotional stress of my husband and I divorcing, and she spent many years as an obesity behaviorist.   When I told her the story, she literally shuddered.   

You WILL learn how to exist as a thin person.    I found out that my "fat shield" was more of a "fat barrier," and freeing myself of that barrier has liberated me from a lifetime of "making do."   My parents still try their best to intimidate me or control me, only difference now is that I don't let them, and don't feel guilty about it.   Just the other day my dad attempted to berate me about the fact taht my daughter had not sent a thank-you note to her aunt for a gift. She HAD sent it.   I jumped right back down his throat about it, and told him if he had a problem with my daughter not sending it, then bring it up with HER, not ME.  He shut up.

Bless us all.

Yes sweetheart Bless us all. You are wonderful. xx

I broke my arm when I was in kindergarten (age 5) and went from being a pretty thin child to being on the heavy side because I wasn't as active anymore.

I very much remember at one of my well-checks after that the doctor telling me I didn't have to lose weight, but I couldn't gain any, either.  They wanted me to hopefully ride out the weight gain with a growth spurt.

Not sure how a 6 year old is supposed to know how to do that.

My parents never put me on a diet but they always supported my efforts.  All of my dieting was self-induced.  I started sneaking food when I was 12 or 13 so I could eat in my room and it just got progressively worse.  I'd binge at night a lot after my parents went to bed.

if I ever tried to lose weight, I was always pretty secretive about that, too.  I didn't want anyone to know how much I weighed or how I was trying to lose weight.  I just had a lot of shame around weight and everything.

I think the worst part is when they line everyone up in elementary school to get weighed in one long cattle call and I was always one of the tallest and the heaviest...so I'd weigh more than the other kids by a longshot.  I know I weighed like 120 or something when I was in 4th grade.  I think my best friend at the time weighed all of 70 or 80 lbs.

I was heavy my whole life.  Was told as a child that my "Baby Fat" would disappear one day.  I kept waiting for that day.  When I was 11 or 12 my Grandmother bought me my first diet pills.  I took them for awhile and my parents took me off of them because I would sleep all the time.  Weigh****chers and Atkins Diet in High School.  Before I got married at the age of 22 I was on the Scarsdale Diet.  I started to gain more weight after my marriage.  My husband used to joke that he told me that he would love me whether I gained 100 pounds or more and I was just testing to see if it was true.  I did gain about 150 pounds.  My metabolism obviously has been broke for my whole life as well

My first diet was when I was 15.  I starved myself until I passed out one night on the floor.

I weighed 133, and thought I was fat.  And dear old Mom told me no one would want to date a girl that weighed over 130.

I heard that from my mom from age ten on "Men only really like skinny girls"   At 15 I was 5'4, 135 and thought I was HUGE.

You know, I sat and read this last night and wanted to respond but I thought I should sleep on it since I was not sure how to put it. We grew up really poor and ate what was caught or canned. There was never any "extras." I think this is the only reason I was not an obese child. By the time I was in high school I had a job and went to school. I used an OTC stimulant to get me through school. I started gaining weight when I was 28. It was like 20 pounds here then I would get it off and then regain 30. I started having medical issues and was placed on medication. I gained 60 pounds in just a few short months. I tried everything! Phentermine took it all off. It came back. And so on and so forth.Just an endless cycle. This surgery means a new start at the life I always thought I would have.