I’m 21 years old and I know weigh 210 pounds and am 5′6. Pretty much my whole life I thought I was fat. My mom had an eating disorder for many years and she’s obsessed with working out and eating the bare minimum now. My dad has struggled a little with weight but he’s a very busy business man and can’t find the time to always go to the gym. Nobody in my family is obese, weight has never been a huge issue. My parents always told me I needed to workout, so therefore I always thought I was big. I didn’t choose the best foods to eat when I was young, but I never over ate. I was active in basketball and baseball, then P.E. in jr.high. Then during and after high school I started to party, and stopped doing sports, etc. I still was not fat. Looking back at pictures during that time, makes me so sad. I went to hawaii about 3 years ago with my family and I was so miserable there bcuz I felt like I had never been this fat and I didnt want to walk around in a bathing suit. I look at those pictures now and I kick myself big time for not flaunting what I had bcuz I had a good body, no one ever told me. So throughout the years, I kept gradually gaining weight. I’ve developed a habit of craving food at night time. I’ve turned into a closet eater. I will go buy snacks and then hide them in my room until everyone goes to bed, then I bring them out and eat them. I don’t eat in excess in front of my family. I feel too embarrassed. I was in a bad emotionally abuse relationship from summer 2007 until pretty recently and that, according to my mom, is when I really started putting on weight. He made me feel like he could have any girl he wants, that he didn’t need me. He had a way of yelling and making me feel so ugly and worthless. But I never left. He was an alcoholic and I felt the want and need to be there to try and help him.

I know it wasn’t my position and you can’t help someone that doesn’t want to help themselves. I wanted to be the first girl in his life to actually make a difference. As the months passed, the fights progressed. He eventually started breaking things in the house (we lived together), he called me every bad name in the book, and then he started calling me fat. That was the killer for me. ANYTHING but that. I started feeling so ashamed of myself, embarassed to ever eat infront of him. I feel like I started putting on the pounds when I was with him because he beat my self esteem down so bad that I had a whole in my heart and my head. I think I turned to food because I’m not interested in drinking (my mom is also has an alcohol problem, so it turns me off), I want nothing to do with drugs, and what else is there? I didn’t know what to do for comfort or for an escape. I suppose food did that for me. Now days, I struggle to go to the gym. I’m a member at the women only gym, Curves. Its an absolutely great program and you really have no excuse to not go. This is my 3rd time signing up, I’ve quit every other time. I usually have a good 2 weeks of eating smaller portions and better foods, drinking 4 bottles of water a day, then something always happens or a switch goes off in my brain and I stop all of it. And that is what I do NOT understand what so ever. I know that I need to lose weight, I know what I need to do, WHY can’t I do it? I wanted to tell my whole story on here just so everyone could get a better perspective about my life and issues. I’ve never told anyone my weight or my life, so I thought maybe this could turn into a positive thing. I would love to get advice on how to help myself, motivate myself, anything at all. Thank you very much for reading

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[Forum] Need Help With Motivation and Self-control