I have struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. I was a normal weight for most of my childhood, but around age 13-14 I started to chunk out. I blame puberty to a certain degree for affecting my hormones/mood/cravings, but I know that I wasn’t very active at that age. I stayed indoors mostly (my love affair with books started around this time) and I drank a lot of soda and I ate too much junk food. When I had to enroll for my first year of high school, I remember dreading the line for the room with the nurse. It was just a room with a scale and a lady with a clipboard. I weighed in ~200 pounds.

I struggled through my teenage years to lose some of that extra weight. I remember how great it felt when someone would compliment me on my weight loss. I craved that approval and it gave me the motivation to keep trying new ways of losing weight. I was never concerned about being healthy, I was only focused on the number on the scale and how to make sure it was getting lower. My self worth was dictated by those 3 numbers. I tried starving myself. I remember one time that I had gone a few days without eating and being embarrassed by the loud, cavernous screams of my empty stomach in the middle of class. I would eventually binge and then feel horrible about myself. After that, I would either try and force myself to throw up or take laxatives.

By my senior year of high school I was waking up at 5am to get in a workout at the YMCA before school. In college I started joining group exercise classes, my favorite being “Super Step” which combined your typical step class with zumba (even though zumba wasn’t really a thing yet.) In 2007 (age 19) my good friend, who had also struggled with her weight, started taking Adderol. (Her boyfriend at the time was a drug dealer.) I was amazed by her weight loss and bought some pills from her to try for myself. Adderol was awesome. I was never hungry and I had crazy amounts of energy to work out. I got down to 159 pounds, which is the lowest of my adult life, but it didn’t come without consequences. Adderol ruined my sleep rhythm (and I have never gotten that back 100% and it’s been almost a decade.) One night I laid in bed for what felt like hours, feeling like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. It scared me so badly that I stopped taking the pills immediately.

Fast forward a couple years to 2009 and I was recently married and back up to 200 pounds. This weight gain was due to laziness and poor eating. I went from exercising and watching my portions to no exercising and adopting the diet of my twenty-something husband. It’s not fair, but a 5’5 woman can’t eat the same portions as a 6’4 male without gaining weight. I understand that now. By 2011 I ballooned to over 250 pounds. (I stopped weighing myself, so it’s possible I made it to 260.) My marriage was not working and living hundreds of miles from my friends and family, I turned to food to comfort me. I moved back in with my parents and my husband left.

In 2012-2013 I had some success with myfitnesspal and counting calories to get myself on track. (I ate a lot of lean cuisines.) I bought a fitness bracelet and started tracking my steps. My mom and I would go walk at the high school track at night so I could try to reach my step goal. I was a able to lose 30 pounds just by walking and tracking my calories. Pretty soon, I graduated from late night walks to Zumba class twice a week. By 2014 I was back under 200 pounds! (194 pounds being my lowest.) I was happy, healthy, feeling confident, got a promotion at work, so it’s no surprise that in December 2014 I met someone and fell in love. I maintained my weight at first, but within 6 months the scale crept back up to 205. Last year we got engaged and bought a house, the scale crept to 215 pounds.

Last month I really started to feel the pressure since we are getting married in October. (I bought a dress that was too small because it was the last one left.) What am I going to do if my dress doesn’t fit?! I finally decided to buckle down and get serious about losing weight again. I’m on week 4 doing Keto and I am blown away! I’ve lost 12 pounds already and my dress is so close to zipping up all the way.

I am more focused now on the fact that I feel healthier and that my clothes fit better and I try not to get hung up on the numbers. Having a supportive, encouraging partner who loves me unconditionally has also helped me tremendously. He has never and would never say anything negative about my weight/appearance or try to degrade me like other loved ones in my past. My journey is far from being over, but I definitely feel like I am moving in the right direction.