My Past and Struggles with Food Issues 1

There is so much to say. What is relevant for others to read about and what isn't? I have done so much searching into my past to find the root of my struggle. It has taken a lot of time, prayer, and more time. I hope what I have to say will help someone out there who reads this. I felt so hopeless and lost in the area of weight, size, body image, and dieting for so long. I have countless journal entries pouring out my heart for concern about wanting to lose weight but not being able to stick to a diet. I want to let you know that I feel like I have found the answer! It is not a diet, it is not exercise. Ok now I am making it sound like a miracle drug or something. The answer for me has been the renewing of my mind in the way I feel about food. It might take me a while to get to the answer but I want to share with you the journey I have been on.

It started so young. I remember thinking I was fat in elementary school! I was not fat but I truly believed that I was. I wanted to do workout videos. I wanted to go on a diet. I do not want to blame this on anyone at all but I do not know how I could have believed these untrue things about myself if I had not seen it modeled by family members. I am only saying this to help get back to the root of where it started.

In elementary school I thought I was fat and was told about the tiny little plumpness to my belly "it is just baby fat." Well, I was not a baby. Looking back, I wish I would have been told "everyone in shaped differently, we were all created to look different. You are absolutely beautiful the way God created you." Who knows if this really would have helped, but I have two daughters and that is what I plan to tell them if they ever come to me thinking they are fat when they obviously are not.


In junior high I was obsessed with almost non existent "love handles." I did endless sit ups and went to aerobics classes (it was the early 90's, step aerobics was the thing to do.) I would try on outfit after outfit and look at myself in the mirror sitting down, horrified by my rolls. My stomach looked nothing like Cindy Crawford's and therefore, I was FAT!

In high school the obsession of course continued and at this point my weight actually did begin to yo-yo a bit. I was probably never actually technically overweight but I did gain weight and then lose it. I was an athlete. I played tennis and ran track. But I never had a flat stomach. I constantly compared myself to friends and models and I never made the cut. I think adults probably thought my thoughts about being fat were silly since they could see that I was not fat. But all that really matters is that I could not see it. I believed I was fat and this belief is probably where my actual struggle with weight and food grew from.

Actually the struggle with food was always there. I remember very specifically, and this is so hard for me to share because it is embarrassing, coming home after school and making cookie dough or brownie dough and eating it. I was always alone after school because my parents were divorced and both working and I would come home and eat. There was never anything "good" in the house. I would mix up brownie mix and water or the basic ingredients for cookie dough (minus the egg) and eat it. This started around age 12.