Be proud of who you are, and not ashamed of how someone else sees you.

Like, I stated before in previous posts, I’ve never had a weight problem until I started taking anti-depressants. I went from a skinny 120lb college kid to fat 160lb college kid in no time. Most medications including anti-depressants cause weight gain and also your eating habits play huge factors as well.

Throughout the past 13 years, my weight has been like a yo-yo. I would gain weight like crazy and lose weight from dieting and exercising. Just recently, I went to the doctor’s office and I jumped onto the scale and it read 240lbs. Wow! So in the past 13 years, I have gained close to 120lbs. NO JOKE. Part of it is the anti-depressants, the other part is my eating habits.

I didn’t think that I had an eating disorder. When my stomach gets hungry, I eat. I will not lie when I say that I don’t always eat right and I should. The help of a dietitian or nutritionist would probably be helpful for me. Learning how to cook healthy meals and training my brain to eat healthy is a goal of mine. Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always go when I’m not hungry. If you go grocery shopping when you’re starving, you will pick up more junk food than you realize. I usually start in the deli and produce department. I hate fruits and vegetables as much as the next person. But what drives me insane is that the bakery department is right across the deli and produce. Why? Don’t tempt me! I usually go down each aisle and get the food that I want to buy and once I get to the junk food aisle, this is where all hell breaks loose. Who can resist the urge of the junk food aisle and the soda aisle? I have to force myself to stay away from that aisle in general.

One time I bought a bag of chips and later I started eating the chips. Before I knew it, the entire bag was gone. I scarfed down the entire bag like there was no tomorrow. And let me tell you that not only do you gain weight from junk food, but your stomach will be none too pleased with what you’ve just eaten. Believe me, I’ve gotten sick from eating too much (or binge eating as it’s called). I refuse to go near Fruit Rollups, Little Debbie’s products, even citrus foods because they make me very sick.

For a long time, I struggled with my weight and also struggled with a diet soda addiction as well as a fast food addiction. You have no idea how easy it is to try something and you can’t stop eating and eating. It sucks. Some days, I will get so lazy and just order out instead of cooking myself a home cooked meal. Some people eat their feelings when they’re depressed. Others turn to drugs and alcohol.

I have zero self-control when it comes to food. I do have to be careful now with food because I’m not 21 anymore. I can’t eat whatever I want and not gain a pound. It doesn’t work like that anymore. I’ve gotten to the point where I suffer from acid reflux disease. I can’t eat anything acidic or else my stomach gets upset and I get very sick. This is why I keep anti-acids, Pepto and heartburn medications with me just in case.

Now that I’m not skinny anymore and my body looks like the picture above, I feel so ashamed of my body. I don’t like what I see in the mirror. Look what depression has done to my body. Look what it has done to my life. Everything changed for the worse since being diagnosed. I feel unpretty compared to other women. Men look in the opposite direction. Sometimes I eat to numb the pain. I don’t have a significant other in my life (currently) and so who do I need to be skinny for. No one.

But I do need to focus on getting my body back in shape for health reasons. I don’t have diabetes yet, I don’t have any cardiovascular problems yet, and my trigs and cholesterol could be high and not even know it. I could also have hypothyroidism because that’s hereditary and my mother has it. She is also overweight and weighs more than me. She, too, eats very unhealthy. I’ve seen here scarf an entire box of Kix cereal in one sitting. No joke. Sometimes, she binges too and gets sick like me.

She isn’t diabetic (not yet), she does have fluid buildup around her heart, but she’s still at risk of getting more serious diseases. How do we change our eating habits? Changing your ways of thinking is one way. Talking one on one with a professional nutritionist or dietitian helps, too. The biggest problem for both of us is: stubbornness and the lack of motivation. If something serious were to happen, then I think that she would probably change the way she eats. But I don’t know. She’s pretty set in her own ways.

One of my resolutions for the next few months is to lose weight before it’s too late. If it means, going to a professional for help then I will. I need to work on prepping meals that are healthy and keep me full throughout the day. That way I don’t rely on eating my feelings to help ease the pain. In order to change, you need the willpower and we all have it inside of each other. We can change our ways, we just need to rewire and train our brains to do so.