Addict and admitting it…finally

I had an epiphany today. Well actually it was an epiphany that I had at the beginning of this year and quickly dismissed it for me regular course of action. What is that said course of action? Dieting. Please don’t stop reading just yet. I know that many of you have been down this road with me several times throughout my life but I wonder if any of you know the extensive nature of the forest around this path. What I mean is, so many of you know that I have been on this diet or that diet or trying the newest pill or serum but I doubt anyone knows exactly why I jump from diet to diet and fail so miserably at all of them. I didn’t really know until, well actually I didn’t really have a full grasp on it till today.

As the title says, yes I am an addict. I am a diet/binge addict. I have been dieting or binge eating since I was 15. I am not exaggerating at all really. As I sit here and think about it I almost have to chuckle at how stark a reality that is. I decided I was too fat sometime around the age of 15 based on what I saw around me on my basket ball team. Most of the girls were bean pols with long legs thin to a line midsections and they were popular. Oh man I wanted to be one of those girls. I was 130 pounds with endowments that most girls, I realize now, would kill for or at the very least pay thousands of dollars for. I had hips and a little extra padding where the other girls never had anything extra…ever. I thought I was fat, and I was called that on occasion too. So I decided I needed to diet. And that is when it all started. My first diet went so well I lost 14 pounds in three weeks and I was ecstatic. But I had been so hard on myself in the food department for the first time in my life I was dieing for carbs. So I indulged. After all, I had lost that 14 pounds and I was looking good. Why not? That was the start of my first binge cycle. And after that it was binge, diet, binge, diet till I had gone up 120 pounds from that beautiful, healthy girl to a woman who can barely look at herself in the mirror without feeling disgusted.

Why did I continue this cycle? I think there are a lot of reasons but one of the most prominent that I can think of is that ever since before I hit High School I was told, out right, by people who loved me that men would never want to be around a chubby or fat girl. No one, except for that extremely rare occasion and the total exception to the rule, would really love me if I was fat. Then everything the media was throwing at me confirmed that.

This was not meant to turn into a sob story, no it was meant to be a triumphant first step. I am breaking up with dieting. That is all there is to it. As my small history exposes the dark and broken roots that have fueled this total disorder I realize I must act before I kill myself. On a side note I think it is interesting how “thin” people diet and we tell them that they shouldn’t because its harmful, and they have no weight to loose because they are beautiful as they are. A chubby person says they want to go on a diet and we become the cheering squad. At least that is how it has been in my life. Not once did my parents tell me I didn’t need to diet because I was beautiful just the way I was.

I don’t know exactly what this breakup means really. I don’t know what I am going to do in this area from here on out but what I do know is I am not going to diet and I am not going to binge. Its strange saying that out loud and writing it for everyone to see. I’m not sure what not binging or not dieting actually looks like. I feel like a child just learning how to walk. I know I need to, I know its the right thing to do, but I really am not sure how to put one foot in front of the other.

So in conclusion of this very long winded thought process I just want to say, Hello, my name is Meran and I am an addict. First step is admission right?