The Bottom.

At the time I’m writing this, I’m 28 years old, 5’7”ish and somewhere between 160lbs and 170lbs (I give you an estimate because I don’t own a scale, and I refuse to buy one).  I have two bachelor degrees and am beginning a master’s program in September, I have no kids and no plans to have kids, and I’m fortunate enough to have had an incredibly wonderful and eternally supportive other for the last half dozen years. 

Unfortunately, student life and a comfortable relationship lead me to find myself the biggest I have ever been last year.  I came home from a down south study break vacation in Feb ’12 and when I saw the pictures being posted on Facebook it knocked me on my ass: why did no one tell me I was so big???  Since my early 20’s I had fluctuated somewhere between 160lb and 180lbs, but I stepped on a scale at a friend’s house and saw the needle reach almost 200lbs.  Yikes.

Seriously, what the fuck.

So, of course, instead of doing something about it I wallowed in my own self-pity.  I binged, I fasted, I cried.  I continued to give into my very unhealthy and abusive relationship with food.  Life was also not being kind: the end of a stressful semester was fast approaching (along with the onslaught of papers and exams) and the boy was leaving.  Since he wanted to be a police officer, he was going to the other side of the country for 6 months of training, and then being posted who knows where.  Either way, he wasn’t coming back.  Since I still had this degree to finish we would be spending *at least* a year apart, with neither of us knowing where either of us would end up and if we could make it work.  He left the week I started exams.

Needless to say, I wasn’t coping.  The weekend he left even my immune system gave out and I found myself with a lovely combination of laryngitis and bronchitis.  You should have seen the shit I hacked up.  Gross.  As a side effect of this I had no appetite and no will to leave the house; my kitchen and tummy were empty.  When I finally mustered the strength to leave I stumbled to the drug store bought one thing: mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Didn't even use a bowl, I’m lucky I managed to grab a spoon.

Halfway through this bucket of shame, it hit me: what the fuck am I even thinking?  This was rock bottom, something had to give.  I had two options: continue this sadness-fatness death spiral, or buck up and do something about it.  Thankfully, I opted for the later.