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I’m 23f, 5’7”, and currently weighing exactly 345.0 pounds as of today, which is actually 6.50 pounds down from the last time I weighed myself. But even with that, I still feel like I wasted the years where my body was young, firm, healthy, and had so much more potential. I’m so angry at myself for letting things get this bad. What hurts the most is that I’ve known how to lose weight for years. It’s not like I’m clueless. I know about calories, nutrition, exercise, protein, Whole Foods, all of it. I know exactly what people are going to say because I’ve heard it a thousand times and I’ve tried almost all of it. Workout plans. Calorie counting. Intuitive eating. “Lifestyle changes.” Starving myself. Treating food neutrally. Volume eating. Cheat meals. No cheat meals. Walking every day. Gym routines. Low carb. High protein. Meal prepping. I’ve tried being gentle with myself and eating intuitively and changing my mindset around food for months at a time and I’ve tried hating myself into changing. Neither lasts. The worst part is I don’t even consciously “quit.” I just slowly stop. I stop tracking. Stop caring for a few days. Start eating emotionally again. Then suddenly months have passed and I gained everything back plus more. This has been my entire life. I remember hitting 200 pounds as a kid and feeling like my life was over. Looking back now, I would do anything to be that size again. Same thing with pictures of myself at 17 or 18. At the time, I genuinely thought I was huge and disgusting. Now I look at those pictures and I honestly ache because I looked GOOD. I looked thick/chubby, sure, but I looked normal. Healthy even. I was so much closer than I realized. But mentally? I felt exactly the same then as I do now. That’s what messes with me the most. My brain convinced me I was beyond repair back then too, even though looking back I clearly wasn’t. And now I actually AM at a size where I feel completely consumed by my weight. I’ve spent most of my life either trying to lose weight, failing to lose weight, regaining weight, or thinking about my weight constantly. It’s exhausting. Food feels like an addiction at this point. Mental health absolutely plays a role too, but then I start thinking: if I hate this so much, why can’t I stop? Why do I keep doing this to myself? And on top of all of that, I also have PCOS and severe hormonal symptoms that make me feel even worse about myself physically and mentally. I deal with intense insulin-driven cravings that make food feel obsessive sometimes, absent natural periods unless I take birth control, excess coarse facial/body hair, and other hormonal symptoms that make me feel deeply unfeminine and ashamed of my body. I have very large hands and size 11 women’s feet, and combined with the hormonal issues and obesity, I constantly feel huge, masculine, awkward, and wrong compared to other women. There are days where I genuinely don’t feel feminine at all. I just feel big. Heavy. Hairy. Misshapen. Like my body developed incorrectly while everyone else got to grow into normal women. I feel lazy. Undisciplined. Weak. Greedy. I know those thoughts aren’t productive, but they’re there constantly. And another thing that hurts is realizing how distorted my self-image has always been. I look back at old videos and pictures and I’m shocked by how beautiful I actually looked while actively believing I was enormous. I spent years hating versions of myself that I would now kill to look like again. That grief is horrible. I feel like I missed out on being young and attractive. By the time I eventually lose the weight, if I even can, I’m scared it’ll be too late. More stretch marks, loose skin, more years gone. I know 23 is still young logically, but emotionally I feel like time is running out and I already ruined my body. I’ve lost and regained the same 20-25 pounds over and over for years. I’m good at maintaining obesity, apparently. That sounds awful to say, but it’s true. I’m just exhausted. I don’t know how many more times I’m supposed to “start over.” I don’t know how to make something finally stick instead of becoming another cycle I eventually fail. I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore. I’m at a complete loss and crying so hard my stomach hurts. I’m so exhausted that part of me just wants to give up on food altogether because I’m tired of feeling controlled by it. Does anyone actually understand this feeling? Being this tired, this ashamed, this consumed by your weight all the time? I’m starting to get severely depressed over this. If anyone has genuinely been where I am, felt this hopeless, and still managed to turn their life around, please tell me how. I can’t keep living in this cycle.
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