I was raiser in a dysfunctional family, my father was abusive and violent, an alcoholic who began drinking since about age 13, who was forced to work to support his mother and sisters from age 6. My mother had the lowest self esteem possible and lived most of her adult life as victim of my father.
I have been obese since I can remember, my father after sobering up and after a violence episode, out of guilt he always tried to compensate us (his family) by bringing food (fast food, ice cream, high calorie junk food). I think from an early age eating became my way to cope with stress, calm myself, deal with boredom as well as my way of rewarding myself.
In my late teens a college friend invited me to go jog with him every day, then we joined a gym. I went from a flabby 230 Lbs. to a lean muscular 185 Lbs.
Over the years I slowly gained more and more weight until after my divorce when out of sorrow I lost 60 Lbs. and then gained about 120 Lbs.
I am now 62 yrs. old and have been trying unsuccessfully to loose weight after the last 2-1/2 years. After reaching 308 Lbs. and with all the prior experience of everything that I had tried and that worked or that had failed I finally came to a few basic premises that I would put into practice to begin my journey loosing weight.
And here I am, with all of you in this journey. I am here to support any and all of you and I know I will enjoy and will welcome all your support and your sharing. I have read very inspiring stories and I am very happy to read about progresses on one hand and on the other hand I tell two things to everyone who like me has tried for so long: NEVER give up and don't fool yourself, it is all about calories intake and calories expenditure, that is it ! It is quite simple after all which by no means signifies it is easy. So: GO ! GO ! GO !
A, L