Hi, my name is Carol and I am an addict. I am addicted to food – I am drawn to it and once the first bite hits my tasted buds, I’m hooked and don’t want to stop.
This is a story of my life while battling weight loss and depression. First, a bit about my history – I’m currently 45 years of age and feel like I’m 70 – everyday I battle getting out of bed – I battle with headaches, shortness of breath, dizziness and pure laziness. Because of being overweight, I refuse to leave the house unless it’s absolutely necessary. If I had my dream job right now – I wouldn’t have to leave the house 24/7. I am embarrassed at what my body looks like – old friends of mine who I haven’t seen for years probably think I have been abducted from aliens – I make plans with every intention of meeting up with them and having a good time, but as the meeting gets closer and closer – the more I start experiencing anxiety issues and end up making an excuse and bowing out.
My health has slowly been deteriorating; I battle with thyroid problems, anxiety, muscle spasms, diabetes, COPD etc. Most of this is stemming from being obese and yeah, there is a bit from smoking cigarettes.
It’s funny when I think back over the years and the see-saw weight problems I experienced. Looking back now I see that my extreme gain/loss always pertained to a stressful time in my life.
Adolescence? Hah…what a joke….My maiden name is Carol Wahl but the grade schoolers knew me as Carol Whale – yeah kids can be heartless and mean. So all you psychologists out there know why I have issues with my weight – map it back to social issues and my peers. Now, my mom would always tell me – “Carol, you are not fat; you are just big boned.” What the f**k does that really mean? Does it mean that Hey, I’m trying to find a nice way to tell you that you need to shed some of that fat off your disgusting body. Or is there really such a thing as “big-boned”?
Could I back track to my youth and blame it on my Italian mother who loved to cook with LOADS of butter, bake cakes, and made pasta every week? Could I blame this on my father who taught me how food could make hurt feelings and owies all better! His favorite sayings at dinner time were “Are you sure you don’t want any more? There’s plenty left?”
Teenage years taught me the importance of being thin and in shape. It was the 80’s and working out to Jane Fonda was the ****! How about dancing to Footlose or Flashdance? As I watched the skinny b*****s hook up with guy after guy in high school, I knew it was time to start dieting.
What I didn’t figure in though is how to diet the healthy way, dieting to me meant cutting calories down to less than 1000 per day and doing aerobics with Jane from the time school let out till it was time for dinner. I was obsessed with dropping weight and lived on the scale – logging every pound gained or lost. It suffices to say that I lost weight big time and the more I lost – the less I ate. I was noticed in school and by the guys….I had guys coming out of the woodwork wanting to hook up. Pretty soon though I stopped menstruating and starting getting dizzy spells. My whole body started growing peach fuzz but I still thought I was fat and wanted to lose more. I was hospitalized and labeled as anorexic – hah that didn’t last long though. As soon as I started eating again – the weight piled on while my parents kept reinforcing their love and verified it with food.
By the time senior year rolled around – I again was on a kick to lose weight and this time made a pact to hide it better from my parents. Looking back at pictures from that time frame…f**k, I looked good! I looked great walking down that aisle at graduation and I kicked ass during senior week – hooking up with my boyfriend’s best friend.
So by this time…(not figuring it out back then) you can relate how my brain is working…..
Get thin….gain attention
Get fat ---- lose popularity
I stayed thin until I got to college. Yeah…those 15 freshman pounds turned into the freshman 50 – I think by this time I was weighing in at 180 lbs. It didn’t stop the attention though – I substituted the thin body with sex. I was promiscuous; sleeping my way through our brother fraternity. Those aren’t days I am proud of and can’t even remember their names – it was a free for all.
I ended up dropping out of college after my first year because of my mother’s cancer returning. I was needed to help with her treatments and care. So I never went back – well that is until I took a trip up there the next year during Homecoming to show off my hot new bod that I spent months starving myself again.
So this is my life – getting heavy – starving myself – getting heavy – starving myself.
When I met my ex-husband it was another time in my life that I was at my prime weight – my mother was dying since they couldn’t fight the cancer anymore. Stress trigger – this time to starve myself. Only after knowing Tony for 5 months we ended up walking down the little wedding boutique aisle and tying the knot. This was only 2/12 months after my mother passed. He was 20 years old and I was 19 – we thought we knew it all. What fun it was to play grown ups and get pregnant immediately! We were married in September and by Christmas I was having morning sickness. I started out my pregnancy at 140 lbs and by the time TJ was born, my weight had skyrocketed to 240 lbs. I was at the hospital every other day having stress tests done and my blood pressure was off the roof. After TJ was born it only took about a few months of starving myself to get back down to my normal weight but by this time I was pregnant again with Timmy and boop…once again weighing in at 240 lbs I gave birth to him 22 months after TJ. This time the weight was a bit harder to get off…
Now this is a time in my life where my immaturity really showed through. I lost all the weight after Timmy and went back to work. I was getting noticed by guys in the warehouse and it fed my ego something fierce.....the more attention I received, the more weight I dropped. Was I doing it intelligently? Fuck no, I was starving myself again. What better to get weight off quickly? Well, things progressed and I ended up cheating on Tony with different men who gave me that false protection of attention.
My marriage was falling apart. My husband found out and was ready to take off with my best friend from high school. I can't even begin to go into the fucked up things I did. My life was falling apart until we both sat down as adults and talked everything out. We decided to give the marriage another shot and get remarried. From that day forth, I swore that I would NEVER cheat on my husband again.
So as the days progressed, I fell into a false sense of security. I was back at work again and moving up quickly through the ranks. Then surprise, surprise - I find out that I'm pregnant again for the third time. 3 Years after Timmy - what a perfect space in age difference between the two boys and hopefully a baby girl. I worked throughout my whole pregnancy and it wasn't a surprise when my weight once again flew up to 240lbs. And Becky was born.
Did I get the weight off after her? Nope, not really - I worked and juggled the 3 kids during the day with the help of my father and Tony worked 2nd shift so we rarely saw each other. It was during this time that we decided to take the next step and buy a house in the suburbs. Oh and what a house it was!! Before Becky even turned 1 we were moved in and playing the "white picket fence" game. It was heaven - The house was humongous, the landscaping beautiful, we were out of the city and out of my father's house.
At this point, Tony was given a promotion into the sales department and instead of getting his hands dirty, he was out hob-nobbing with others. He spent less time at home - we fought constantly and again our marriage was on the rocks. It came about that I finally found out that he was cheating on me with a much younger stripper. He would go to the strip bar after work to meet her. My life crashed around me and food became my enemy. I lived on cigarettes and vodka/OJ - I continued to go to work and continued to shed the pounds...and I mean, I shed them and showed off my new and improved body. My marriage was over and it was time for me to get back into the swing of things. I was 29 years old and still young enough to start all over.
Well, by the time 30 rolled around - the weight was still coming off and I was the skinniest I had ever been in my life and this turned me into a COUGAR. I went after guys who were about 10 years younger - by this time I was traveling all over the US with my job and having one night stands in each state I visited. I was on top of the world - Moving up to sit on the Board of Directors, the skinniest I have ever been, hooking up with young guys every weekend. Nothing could go wrong...well - at least until I met a boy...yeah - a boy. He was 13 years younger then me....No I didn't know at first what his true age was but it didn't take long until I was obsessed with him. And my life spiraled into hell. I was doing drugs - major drugs on weekends...partying with kids - dropping E, snorting coke, and snorting more coke. The weight continued to drop off - since weekends the kids were with my ex were the weekends I didn't sleep for 48 hours - snorting 8 ball after 8 ball up my nose. Then during the week I was addicted to diet pills from the corner doctor. I don't know if you all know about the "yellow jackets, robins eggs, etc" - These are true MD's that are considered diet doctors and you give them cash...they give you a little envelope full of these diet pills which were different forms of Amphetamines. Those got snorted too! UGH I was a mess...
Story to be continued as my days progress toward surgery and after!
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