Hey everyone! New here - Here's my story
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| Sat, 04-24-2004 - 10:39pm |
I found this board just tonight, which is odd because I come to iVillage all the time, but never really bothered much with message boards, but a lot of your posts hit home to me and I decided to post.
My name is Dena. I'm a 21 year old female from NJ, I'm about 200-195lbs, I haven't weighed in about 2 weeks so I'm not exactly sure. I know I dont have over 100lbs to go, but it might as well be!
I started out at almost 300lbs about a year and a half ago. I've come a long way, dealing with a huge compulsive over-eating disorder. I haven't been thin since I was about 3 years old and grew up as a overweight child, to an overweight teen, and now to an overweight young adult.
My dad outwardly disliked overweight people, and he would constantly insult me and put me down, saying things like "Why can't you be like other girls? Why can't the boys be knocking down the door for you?!!" and things like that lead me to throw myself into starvation, which is how I lost about 60lbs. Thankfully, my parents got divorced about 4 years ago, so I no longer have to deal with the ridicule from my dad, but it still left it's mark on me.
In my life, being overweight has been the culprit for most of my problems... from low self-esteem, shyness, self-hatred and etc. I absolutely hated myself (and most times still do) because I'm overweight. I used to go to bed at night, crying my eyes out, wishing I were thin... praying that I would just wake up thin so I could be content. I look in the mirror and hate every bit of what I see, and can't even notice the almost 100 pounds I've lost so far. To me, it's as if I still look the same and have lost nothing.
To make matters worse, because I had been starving myself, I was even more prone to binges, which consisted of nothing less than about 3,600 calories a piece. I've been at a plateau for the past 6 or 7 months and I'm getting ultimately pissed off, so I decided to do a high protein, low carb thing, and try to eat normally, instead of starve myself which does NOT work anymore.
During my entire duration of losing weight, I worked out A LOT. 6-7 days a week. 45-60 minutes of cardio a day and resistance training. It's kind of addicting now and it keeps my depression at bay because of the endorphic rush, along with the balancing of my seretonin which was extremely off-balance beforehand.
Despite all that, somehow, I've hit a major plateau. Probably because I'd eat nothing for 3 days, then binge really badly on the 4th, and it was a vicious cycle. I'm trying hard as hell to eat normally, which is difficult because I turned food into the enemy, something to be feared instead of properly loved. Actually, I WAS at 185, but gained it all back due to a 2 month binge spree.. it was insane.
I'm rambling, I'm sorry.. I guess I just needed to vent and give you all some background of me and maybe someone could get some kind of inspiration out of it. I know how hard it is to be in the upper 200's, but it is SO possible to get down to your own specific goal... hell, I did it with a horrible binge problem, and if I can do it, anyone can do it.
I'd love to hear everyone else's stories, I love to be able to find common ground with people who struggle the same as I do.
-Dena

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Welcome to the board and bless you for being so open and honest.
I understand about the verbal abuse that can happen. When I was a teen I had a granddaddy, who I loved very much, tell me how fat, worthless, and ugly I was. HMMM, funny I was 5'6 and only 150 at the time. But you know what he was wrong and will always be wrong.
You too can get through this and heal and you will prevail.
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