Starting Over

I have lost count of how many times I've been on a diet. I started when I was in high school. I wasn't fat, really, but my mother convinced me that I was. When I was 16, I weighed about 115 pounds. Mom thought I should weigh closer to 100, and so I dieted. I tried the Cambridge diet, the all-meat diet, and the grapefruit diet. I lost weight and put it back on like a yo-yo. I never got close to my desired weight, and my senior year in high school I had to wear the same three skirts and four tops left over from my junior year because my mother wouldn't buy me any new clothing, and I wasn't allowed to have a job (for fear my grades would dip) to earn my own money.

I wasn't fat. I wanted to weigh less, but I really wasn't fat.

In college, I dieted more. I tried Nutri-System, Weight Watchers, counting calories. I'd lose weight, then gain a few more points. I exercised like crazy -- I ran or swam every day of the week. I was hungry all the time. I would dream of eating ice cream drenched in caramel sauce.

I've dieted, on and off, for the majority of my adult life. Since college, I've been on Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, you name it. Each time, I'd lose weight and then gain it all back plus more.

By the time I was in my 20's I was a little bit overweight. By my 30's, I was fat. By my 40's, I was obese.

I weigh 257 pounds. I'm 5'2" tall.

So now I am starting over, again, hoping that somehow this time, things will be different. This time I'm counting calories and exercising. I've got a food diary/calorie counter in my PDA, and we'll see how things go. I'm not pretending to be overly optimistic, but this is something that really has to be done.

For the first time in my life, my weight is getting in my way and it's time to do something about it.