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I have two beautiful children, a WONDERFUL husband, a great Mom who has pretty much moved in with us to take care of my children, a good job (stressful but good), I have everything a person could ask for yet I have a very low self-esteem. I know where that comes from, it has been my demon my whole life... I'M FAT. I have lost a lot of weight two times in my life. I looked so good, but I have not been able to keep it off.

You know I'm just like many people who grow up with the stigma of being fat, doesn't matter what I do, doesn't matter if I loose 5 million pounds or stay the way I am, I always think I'm fat. Since I can remember my Mom always told me I was fat. Kids can be cruel and were cruel to me on more occasions then I care to even count when I was growing up. I was so tall and just a big girl. I was 4' 5 when I started kindergarten and well I was a freak in those days. I remember being almost as tall as my Kindergarten teacher and I was as tall as one of the teachers in my school by the time I was in second grade. By 6th grade I was 6'1 and well I was just different. I didn't have a father in my home and in those days... that too were different... and then I was also an only child. Strike 3... I was out. When I got to Jr. High I wasn't the tallest, there were 8th grade boys. There was one other girl who transferred into our school district who was just a smidge shorter than me... she moved in to play basketball which is another issue I may tackle here some day but for now I will focus. Karna, the other tall girl, was very thin, very pretty, and well I was not thin like her. We were friends for a while but we just had a different focus and I really believe she had a lot of pressure on her at home to be the best... I didn't have that. I just had pressure to not be fat.

I got to High School, I was very in to track and orchestra, and wanted nothing more than to fit in, be one of the crowd. I had a pretty good personality, and I had some awesome friends. But I never had a date, no one wanted to date the tall girl who was fat. I quit the track team my freshman year, once again another issue I may have to tackle some day, and that was a mistake. I was such a nerd my freshman year, coming off an eighth grade year that our graduating class remembers as one of the most fun compared to any others... I digress... but I had been grounded from about April my eighth grade year until hmmmm I think Christmas of my Freshman year so well if you don't have your friend base when you start your Freshman year you are no one. As I continued to make my way through High School, I did get my act back together, started hanging out with some great people, got back on the track team and had some success with my music. I was doing ok... yet I was still fat. My mom would poke me in the stomach and say... "You know if you could just get rid of this".

I was always on a diet. In 5th grade it was TOPS with my Mom, then it was whatever diet I would read about in a magazine, also in High School there was this odd little man Richard Simmons who came on the diet front. I would get up at 5:30 in the morning to watch his show, listen to everything he had to say, ate like he said to eat. Yet I still had no dates, I still had great friends, I was everyone's best friend, guys loved to talk to me about their problems with their girlfriends who were my friends... no dates, everyone's friend, "you know Christy you have such a pretty face", all equals... YOU ARE FAT.

Now before I enter into the next part of this blog when I tell you that I was fat I want you to know that if I look back at pictures from high school it's so hard for me to believe I was considered fat. I think at my highest weight in HS was 170 pounds. I'm 6'1”, I do have a larger frame... That is not fat. I WAS NOT FAT. Yet I am a classic case of believing what people tell you. It was also very odd... April my senior year I finally got a boyfriend, went to prom, had a great time. He moved away, I was leaving for college and isn't it funny how the guys would come out of the wood work and tell me, I was too good for the guy I had been dating and I could have done better. Ok ASSHOLES where were you when I wanted to go to Homecoming or a school dance for the prior three years???

So anyway, I go off to college. I meet some great people, yet gained that Freshman 15 and tell myself when I returned home that summer I was not going back to the U of I fat. I refused to eat, unless you call one can of green beans, 3 apples, and who knows how much beer in the course of 6 weeks eating. I also, would work out 3 times a day. Jane Fonda workout tape was my friend. My good friend Lorraine was going to China for a track meet and I would work out with her many days a week... I was going to be thin. I succeeded. I got all the way down to 155 pounds. I wore a bikini (burnt the heck out of my belly one day!!!) it was good, but I was obsessed. I was still not happy. My Mom would still poke me in the belly. I went back to U of I. turned a few heads but nothing major. No boyfriend, too many nights out, too hard for me to have the will power not to eat when I would rather go out with my friends and had nowhere to work out. Over the next few years I gained the weight back, was in and out of a couple BAD relationships. I still had low self esteem, had a hard time in school, felt like a failure, was a failure, I was fat.

Since college, 20 years has come and gone. I got married, got divorced, have had oodles of hours of counseling yet I have gained weight every step of the way. Moved away, gained more weight moved again... and realized I had to get this under control. So I joined a gym, started to work out, but the weight wouldn't come off. I got a job in the northern suburbs of Chicago and decided I was going to lose weight. I was not going to fail and I had to find a way that worked for me. I went to see my therapist in Sterling because at one point I had visited him and he, who didn’t need to lose weight, had lost a lot of weight by starting to eat naturally and I wanted to know how he did it and whom he went to.

Well that was 5 years ago and I went to her and lost about 100 pounds using her ideas, taking supplements, and following proper food combining. I praised her name, she was my miracle worker, I have sent more people to her than I can count on my hands and feet. I truly believe that because of everything she helped me do, I was able to get pregnant and have my beautiful children.

Which leads me back to being fat. I gained all my weight back with Grace and then some. I got so heavy, had hypertension, it was not good. Never lost my weight from her and got pregnant with Mac. With Mac, I developed gestational diabetes and actually lost weight with him.

Now however, I have gained weight. I ask myself EVERY SINGLE DANG DAY when are you going to start your diet. I tell myself I need to take control. I have been afraid to go back to my holistic doctor because I have been so bad. I have failed again. I can’t fail again. I’m worried that I have not gotten rid of my gestational diabetes and that is now real diabetes. But I don’t want to go to a doctor. I don’t want to address it. I want to do this on my own… I’ve always tackled my problems on my own. But it’s not working… I’m not losing. I eat anything my family brings in the house. I don’t cook anything because I am so busy with work. I make every excuse in the book. We are celebrating this, I have to go to that, they won’t have food I can eat… I’m almost 100 pounds more than I was in high school because of all the excuses I have made over the last 20 years and now I am officially fat.

So what am I going to do about it? Do I know what to do? Do I have the means to change my behavior? Do I want to live a long life? Do I want to grow old and see my children, that I waited sooooo long to have, grow up and be wonderful adults? The answer to all those questions is yes.

So I guess I’m going to tackle this mountain. I’m going to grab the bull by the horns and have the will power to do what I need to do. I am going ask for help when needed, I’m going to pray for strength and healing, I’m going to kiss my children every day and remember what the ultimate goal is… to watch them grow. I’m going to call Dr. Renee and tell her I have screwed up and I need to start over. I’m going to see my therapist on a regular basis. I’m going to ask my husband for help when needed. I’m going to eat right, combine my food right, fast every 7 weeks, drink a lot of water. I’m going to exercise a minimum of three days a week. I’m going to blog to help me talk about what is getting to me. I’m going to put myself out there. I’m going to win this battle.

And the next time my Mom pokes me in the belly to say, “If you could just lose this.” I’m going to refrain from the deep desire to want to break her fingers and politely ask her to stop.