Eating Disorder

I have had a distorted body image my whole life. My mother and both my grandmothers were on me about my weight even though I wasn't overweight when they first started this. I just wasn't the skinny toddler and young child they were used to. After a while I would sneak food, eat when nobody was watching and I did become overweight. I did manage to lose the weight during my freshman year of college by drinking nothing but diet shakes. I was ashamed of this and kept it a secret from my friends. I didn't want them to judge me because it seemed that they could eat whatever they wanted and still maintain their slim figures. Later I discovered I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which did not help with my weight loss goals. I would drink my diet shakes in stealth, when nobody was around, sometimes even going into the bathroom where they couldn't see me. Whenever I went out to restaurants with my friends for those late night get togethers that people in their teens and twenties tend to do, I would only order a drink, something like iced tea. It made me feel isolated that I couldn't order food like everyone else.

In my 20s through my 40s, I moved to low carb. Deprived myself of anything with grain, cut out all gluten. I was convinced that this was the enemy. Supposedly this was the magic bullet for PCOS. This also had me feeling isolated from everyone else. Even worse, I got bullied over it. My sister-in-law would sigh in exasperation, "You're ALWAYS on a diet" and make fun of my food choices. For example, the family wanted Chinese and I agreed only if I could order it and she yells loudly, "I want mine with LOTS OF FAT AND LOTS OF GLUTEN!" My mother was fond of saying, "I don't know why you're not thin. You really don't eat anything."

In the past few months, I think I am finally on the road to recovery. I started doing a step counting health program through work and began tracking my food through an app. These days, I eat pretty much what I want to, not restricting anything from any food groups, just watch my portion size. I am down over 20 pounds since January and weigh less than I have in a long time. I try not to let my mother gloat about her weight and her bugging me about my numbers on the scale bother me. For the first time since I went on that diet at 12 years old, I feel healthy.