wilapr
I have been overweight since the third grade. While many kids were out playing, I was in front of the television watching Nickelodeon. My overweight grandmother watched me and my siblings during the day, and watched soap operas. My siblings and I preferred long air-conditioned days in our basement rather than running around the yard. With an overprotective mother, we weren't aloud to go far.
These are the habits that stuck. By the time I was in the third grade, other kids had gotten into sports, and I liked drawing and painting. By the time I wanted to get involved in sports, I didn't feel like I'd be good enough, so I stayed away from anything athletic.
With a grandmother who had been on countless yo-yo diets, she put me on my first diet when I was in the fifth grade. Who knew they let fifth graders go to Weight Watchers. I became self-conscious about my weight at a very young age.
During the summer my uncles were our drivers to double-feauture movie days and the beach. Frequently, there were days where we ate three meals a day at the fast food restaurants of our choice. As you can imagine, I started packing on the pounds.
It may come as no suprise to know that I was diagnosed with depression when I was in middle school, and still struggle with it today.
I reached two hundred pounds somewhere in the beginning of high school. And I kept on gaining. It has all been very gradual. The most I have ever lost at one time is 20 pounds. I have joined Weight Watchers 3 times, and Nutrisystem once. All by the age of 24. Now at the age of 26, I have recently hit the highest weight I have ever been. 292 pounds is somewhere I never thought I would be. And it is somewhere I never want to be again.
I believe that obesity is the reason why I am always left at the table, when all of the other girls are asked to dance, and the reason why I've never had a boyfriend, and for the reason it took me a year and a half to find a teaching job...which I lost the following year.
I think I started realizing that I needed to do something when in one summer I broke a tree house ladder, bowling alley bench, and lawn chair with my obese ass. And now I see that I need to change because when people see me coming, they scoot their chairs in, move their coats, and wait to be brushed by my fat body. Last summer, I barely squeezed into a carnival ride, it physically hurt when the pulled down the bar to secure me, and I remember wondering, "When did I become this fat?" I told myself that I didn't want to be so big next summer. And that is my goal.
