Thats truly a brilliant realization Stephanie!! You will have success now.

I can certainly relate to your story on a few levels....I too, weighed in the 160s when I got out of HS and was teased horribly that I was fat. I also have a dog walking business that I've had for the past 12 years now.....was walking with the extra 100 lbs on me and it did hurt my body, a lot!!!

As for when I gained the extra 100 lbs.....I'd always been between 160 and 180, right through to when I was 28 yrs old. I lost my mom to suicide when I was 28 and my life and my family crumbled around me. It was a very bad time for me as I was extremely traumatized by her choice. My dad and sister dealt with it in very different ways from me...they both moved on with their lives with sister getting married a few months after my mom died and my dad remarrying a year later. My weight during this time period was 140-150 as I had just done a very low carb/low cal diet with a behavior modification therapist....but when it all hit me, I found myself face down in a big bag of chips.....I battled it for a few years and gained back what I'd lost, by the time I was 37 yrs old, I was at a high of 187 lbs.

From the time I was 38 yrs to 40 yrs old....I stopped trying and stuffed my face with highly processed carbs, flour, sugar....ugh! and by the time I was 40 yrs old, I was 287 lbs and totally freaked out . I was using food to self medicate and I hated myself and could not see this truth. I went from diet to diet and failed miserably every single time. I'd lose a few but was always seeing what I could still eat and get away with.

But....this was all my process....by the time I was 47 yrs old, I still had not gotten it about my compulsive overeating and I was still trying to diet. It was not until I spent time going to OA meetings and worked with a good sponsor, did I really get how I was abusing food and my body, with my need to self medicate.

Armed with this knowledge, when I began this particular leg of my journey, I made it through using the skills I had learned while in those OA meetings....and they did and do help me daily. Now when I do my dog walking each day, my feet don't ache so much and I can walk oh so much faster.

Pennink:

"It's so weird, too. When I tell people that I gained on their idea of a 'healthy diet' (fruits and grains), they don't believe me."

This has happened to me too - exactly the same thing. I paid £40 ($80) for advice from a highly-qualified nutritionist who put me on the same thing, fruit and grains. It meant eating wholewheat home made organic muesli for breakfast, organic pasta, potatoes, brown rice etc for lunch and dinner. And as much organic fruit as I wanted. But no fat!

It was extremely expensive!

I gained weight!

I had acid reflux, constant wind pains, indigestion, I felt so bloated I could not tie my shoelaces, my stomach was like a great big balloon!

She said I had cheated - I said why would I pay £40 then cheat? She said it was impossible that I could feel so sick on such a healthy diet. I never saw her again.

Huh!

It's funny how we can do that here, with all this support, and ppl GET what we mean. (I love you guys!)
Get stories and testimonials. Thanks Ndurance for starting it. I'll think about my own story and post it later on, after I get home from sonny's appt.

When you know you are among fellow-sufferers, fellow strugglers, it's easy to open up, knowing you've found a safe place in a pretty hostile world.

My mother. And my mother's mother's genes. And that's the story.

My grandmother died well over 300 lbs. Almost everyone on my mom's side of the family was severely overweight. And this at a time when America was generally thin. Most of their fat was on the abdomen, as mine is. The legs and hiney tends to stay so thin the tailbone gets injured.

My mom was 5 in the Great Depression. She heard her parents saying that if the food wouldn't stretch, they would have to place her with a relative. Can you imagine what that would do to a 5 year old? she became paranoid about not wasting a morsel of food, and making sure everyone had enough to eat. Of course, the foods she made were carbs. Meat was too expensive to stretch very far, and salad didn't last as long in the stomach. Vegetables were corn, potatoes, and peas-n-carrots (with sugar).

And then, to add insult to injury, Mom started a home bakery, because my step-dad was disabled. We HAD to eat up everything that didn't sell! So we had cream pie 3 times a day, sometimes. I won't go into detail of everything we pigged out on... It wouldn't be kind to you all. But let me say, I passed 200 lbs ~16, and never looked back. Mom forbade me to go on any serious diet while I was growing. But then she never let me diet until I left home.

I forgive you, Mom. I love you. You did the best you knew.

But now I know better.