This behavior continued even into my 40s.  Except while pregnant, I never hit obesity levels, which was due only to my attempts to counterbalance the overeating by over-exercising with maniacal workouts or secret runs in the middle of the night, or consumption of laxatives or failed attempts to induce vomiting. But I was always overweight.

I did once lose a lot of weight my junior year because I took a job at a fast-food restaurant and was on my feet 50+ hours a week. I also met a boy and spent that summer walking back and forth from his house to mine so by my senior year I was relatively thin but I still felt huge. The first boy and I broke up and I met another boy halfway through my senior year and thanks to all of the drinking and cigarette smoking and drug use combined with hard manual labor and stress I stayed in the 140s until I turned 20 and got pregnant, at which time I gained almost 100 pounds. By the time I was 21, and 9 months pregnant, I weighed over 230 pounds. I was up to a size 22 from a 10. The prenatal nurses said they had never seen anyone gain so much weight so fast! While I was pregnant I allowed myself to eat all of the foods I wanted in all of the quantities I wanted and as I recall this was mostly fried chicken breasts on white bread laden with mayonnaise and sweetened breakfast cereal by the boxful. 

After my daughter was born, and while I was still over 200 pounds, I was in a car accident and fractured two vertebrae in my spine. After weeks of pain and intolerance to the pain pills, in desperation, I just started walking. My first week I could barely walk a single block without getting winded and exhausted, but I kept going and after a month or so my back felt better. I then went on a popular shake diet for six months and joined a gym and ultimately lost over 100 pounds. By 23 I was at my lowest weight ever of 130 pounds. Of course, this did not last. Within a year I was back to the 150s and dealing with insensitive comments from men such as “what happened to you?” Within five years I was up to 178 pounds. My weight fluctuated all throughout my 30s as I literally tried every fad diet on the market. I did shakes and starvation, pills and frozen meals, healthier options like the Mediterranean type of foods, and barely tolerable options like grapefruits and eggs. I was also a pack a day smoker and every time I tried to quit I would gain weight and then start smoking again to lose it. I gained and regained the same 20 pounds over and over and over again. When I turned 40, I was finally able to quit smoking, and I married a drill sergeant who helped me starve and run myself into a size 6. Once again I was able to get down into the 140s but I still could not keep the weight off no matter how much I exercised. If I dared to eat more than 1500 calories a day (which left me hungry all the time) I could stay thin but I hated being hungry and always felt deprived, so I ate more calories than that unsustainable minimum. I went up and down but mostly stayed an average but unwanted size 12 to 14 for the next 7 years. 

Throughout all of those years, I read everything I could get my hands on as it related to diets and weight loss. There have been so many different theories on what works best and what to do and what not to do and it has changed over and over again. I was there when you weren’t supposed to eat any fat and fat-free everything was the rage. It was awful. I was always hungry and never thin. I was there at the height of the shake craze and again I was always hungry and only once thin. I participated in the Mediterranean diet craze (one of the good ones in my opinion) and the no-carb craze (one of the worst ones in my opinion) and the no sugar phase which is actually the best of them all because it was one of the first of its kind that isolated the real issue with our diets, which is sugar.  The last diet I tried was based on only eating whole foods for at least a month but you’re not allowed carbohydrates like bread or sweet potatoes at first and I felt like my brain was disconnected from my body and my mouth tasted weird and I actually gained weight while on it because I overate to make up for the feelings of deprivation from the lack of carbs. I will never give up carbs gain. 

I will also never go on a diet again. I will never again follow a meal plan that allows me to eat all of the bok choy and fish I want, but won’t let me eat fruit or bread. I will never again go on a diet that expects me to drink my meal instead of indulging in the use of silverware and the act of chewing, or claims that a low protein high carb 100 calorie snack bar is going to get me through until the next meal. I have eaten my last grapefruit unwillingly and never again will I drink magnesium citrate or take a laxative just to get rid of the bloat or to a lower number on the scale.  It was time for a change.