struggles of weight loss

A personal story about weight loss or struggles with weight loss
Healthy Lifestyle - BodEvolve Scholarship
Attending Rasmussen College
Continuing Rasmussen College
Early Childhood Education Certificate
October 4, 2020
 
My life is a story that shows that weight, at least for me, is relative to stress and emotion. I have been small, fluffy, fat, and on a path of losing weight. Then I would fall back into gaining it all back. The following is my story of a Fat Woman.
I was born at the weight of 8 pounds and seven ounces in a little town of Paintsville, Kentucky. As a little girl, I was very skinny. My mother, father, aunts, and uncles were all small. The only person in my life who carried a little fluff was my grandmother. I loved how it felt when she held me on her lap. I felt happy and confronted. I remember thinking that I wanted to be “fat” like Mamaw. (Looking back, I think she only weighed 165 pounds.)
I remained a very slim girl and teenager. We lived in hardship and little income. For a few years, we lived without electric or running water. We washed clothes in the Big Sandy River, cooked our meals on center blocks with an oven rack across a fire, and many times we ate rabbits or fish that we caught. Those were hard times filled with freedom of play and family.
That soon changed when I was seventeen. At the hands of a middle-aged male neighbor, my life began to change. I kept a secret about things he did to me for over a year. First week of November I got sick and was hospitalized. I weighed 99 pounds. I was prescribed vitamins through IV and oral vitamins at home. Then I got sick and back in the hospital the last week of November, and I had gained weight to 129 pounds.
I got married in December at the age of 20. I weighed 145 pounds. In the first year, I gained 55 pounds. Five years later, I got pregnant with my first child. I only gained 25 pounds. When she was three months old, I got pregnant with my second son. I gained another 40 pounds, bringing me up to 225 pounds. This is still the beginning.
Sixteen years later, I was going through a divorce. In the first year, I weighed 297 pounds. I did not want to do anything but sleep. I moved to Sarasota, Florida to begin a new life in a new relationship. In Florida, I met a Dr. who worked with me on my weight. She gave me a diet of 750 calories a day. I used websites such as Everyday Health and Fit2Me. I was able to count calories in and those I used in everyday chores or activities. It was so hard at first. I had to go to the hospital because I got week and was not putting out urine. After IV, I lost 60 pounds in four months.
Then my father died, and something happened to me. I just could do it anymore. I did not feel that I could want to do it. I gained back to 281 pounds. I was in a power chair to get around the neighborhood.
Now I am trying again. I am losing weight, and I know that I have no choice but to succeed. I noticed that I either eat nothing or overeat when I am depressed or stressed. I am a teacher of a two-year-old class. I love them, but they are active. My knees and joints are giving out, growing large knots, and wearing out. When I go have and sit on the couch after eight to ten hours on my feet, I have to have a cane to journey to the bathroom. I know that if I do not figure out how to overcome the issues that cause the weight struggles, I will not be able to do what I love much longer.