I have wanted to post here but I just am not sure what to say.
As a child, I was pretty skinny and lanky. I did have the tendency toward a belly though. I didn't have issues when I was small. When my mother went into the hospital for the last time, she was there for the rest of her life. I went into my shell and found comfort in sugar and sweets. When I did good things, my mom would take me out for a treat.
My father remarried almost immediately. I had a really hard time with that. I threw myself into my studies and sports. I was very good at sports and I was fast. I realized at around middle school age I wasn't like the other girls. Being the new kid in a new place, I was targeted for teasing and such. We had to wear these ridiculous gym suits and change in the locker room. I was always a full head taller than most kids in my classes until high school. I was very awkward. "big boned" was always a term used for me. I'm built like a linebacker and my bone frame is bigger than my father's. It was during these locker room changing episodes that I found myself getting self conscious and the term "fat" was applied to me purely because I needed a really big sized gym suit.
In high school, I was called ugly but never fat. I played sports year round. I even ran in my off sport time......about 3-5 miles a day. I was 5'7" and weighed about 125lbs. and the smallest sized jeans I could wear were size 11 because of my pelvic bones not being able to fit a size 9. My younger step-brother would call me fat when he was mad at me. That hurt more than the kids at school. I remember there hardly being anything in the house to eat when I came home from sports practices and was ravenous. At one point, I missed my period for about 6 months. I never told my parents. I wasn't worried about it at all...I wasn't sexually active. My parents were always imposing portion control on me. I never understood why. They weren't that way with my step brother.
In college, I was very body conscious and started working out on a regular basis in addition to running 3-5 miles a day. I gained the freshman weight. But then my life took a huge turn. I became ill and was no longer able to attend to my studies. I was put in the hospital for being suicidal. I was put on psych meds. These meds ruin your metabolism. I have been fat ever since.
My weight fluctuated for years, as did my self esteem and confidence. At one point, I was so depressed I wasn't eating and got very skinny. My family and everyone was telling me how good I looked....no one knew how awful it felt inside to look "good".
As the years progressed, the weight came back. I have worked sedentary jobs and very physically demanding jobs. My body continued to change as I was stressing it at different times. The most body changing job I had was loading freight. I developed into a huge moose. I am very physically strong. But......the weight didn't seem to come off. I would step on the scale and be heavier than ever....although, my partner at the time told me how good I looked, I couldn't see the muscle tone vs. the numbers on the scale. I started dreading going to the Dr because of that damned scale. I still hate scales to this day and still dread stepping on them.
I went from a very active job to a very sedentary job and gained weight. The gf I had told me that she was no longer attracted to me because I got "fat". I have never in my life been petite. To this day I still struggle with my weight. But I have come to better terms with being "fat".
I hope this wasn't too scattered.....but I wanted to share......thanks for this thread.