Timeline in Pictures

The weight loss journey is extremely emotional. Anyone who has lost a lot of weight will tell you that. It has been a real emotional roller coaster. I have thought that I was fat my whole life. But in looking at pictures from growing up, I wasn't. I didn't get fat until high school. I remember the first time I decided that I was fat. I think that I was probably in fifth grade. I was about eighty pounds. It's crazy the things that I remember. I found out that my friend who was a year older than me was only seventy pounds. I was horrified that I was younger than her and weighed ten pounds more than her. She was teeny and very petite, and she was a ballet dancer. It was only natural that I would weigh ten pounds more than her. I didn't realize this back then and decided I was fat.

Look at this picture of me dressed up for Halloween back in seventh grade. Not fat, yet I thought I was.

This picture of me playing the clarinet in eighth grade? (I know, I'm cool) Look at those pants! I can't wait to be able to look that good in jeans again. This picture is actually a source of motivation for me, because I know I've looked good before, so I can again.

This picture of me on the last day of ninth grade, look at my face. I don't even have a hint of a double chin.

It makes me so mad that I wasted so much time my whole life with negative thinking when I didn't need to. I think that because I wasn't the skinniest girl in my grade, I thought I was fat. If I wasn't one extreme, I was the other. For every single one of these pictures, I thought at that point in time in my life that I was fat. What a waste.

This picture is from my sophomore year of high school. You can see my face is starting to fill out.

You can definitely see it in this picture.

Here's a second picture of me playing the clarinet, this time my senior year of high school instead of eighth grade. Huge difference, right?

By graduation, I was a big tubby. My body has absolutely no shape.

Check out my arms in this picture with my kitty cat.

This is me on the left after my first year of college when me and my roommates ate like crazy all year. Thunder thighs and double chin.

So how did this happen? I've been thinking a lot about it. What happened in high school that I started eating more? I think I have figured it out. I found out my sophomore year of high school that I did not have Celiac Disease, a disease which makes you sick if you eat gluten, which is in pretty much everything, like wheat, barley, and rye. So when I found out I didn't have it after seven years of thinking that I did (I never stuck to the diet very well anyway, because I never got sick from eating gluten) I started eating gluten products like pizza and donuts like crazy because I didn't have to show restraint anymore. I also started working in fast food. I loved that job, it was so much fun and I loved the people I worked with, and I hate to say it, but I ate that food pretty much every day. Who knows, maybe I would have gotten fat anyway. I love food, and I have an addictive personality, so it's a good thing I don't drink or smoke. But those are the culprits I have found. I can't change the past, but I can change the future.

What am I grateful for today? Today I am grateful for all the trials I've been through in my life. Everyone always says this, but everything I just said in this post I am grateful for because it is a learning experience. I now know what not to do in my future. I am grateful for the mistakes I've made in my life so that I won't make them again.