The question ‘where’, is something that needs to be addressed. The answer will obviously be quite complex so I’ll pass on a bit of personal history regarding my weight issues. I was told I was ‘fat’ from my youngest days. I was born back in 1947 just after WW2 when the UK was still suffering severe food shortages. I lived in South Wales which wasn’t known as the most affluent area of the country, In this scenario, my family was relatively well off so were able to afford to buy the best of what was available. I was never hungry and in fact, as was the fashion of the day for babies and toddlers, I was quite to be chubby. This showed I was well-fed. I wouldn’t say I was ‘force-fed’ but I was required to empty my plate regardless of what was on it or how full I was. The result was that when began my schooling I was considerably ‘wider’ than most of my peers. The result was I was awarded the nickname “Billy Bunter”. For those who’ve never heard of him, or understand what an insult this was I refer you to the Wikipedia entry for said lad, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bunter
Effectively this screwed with my body image and set in stone body dysmorphia, which I’ve carried for my entire life. Even when I was a normal size for a teenager, in school the nicknames continued. It wasn’t helped that I have other issues that were undetected or resolved. Asperger’s Syndrome had ‘discovered’ back in 1944 but was pretty obscure at the time so there was support for me at all, nor was there support for my other issues (see previous post).
It was as a teenager I first felt I needed to ‘diet’. My sister and I found a little diet that actually seemed to work for a while, but as with all other diets, I failed to keep it up and my weight increased. Over the past 60 years I must have lost my entire body weight repeatedly but piled it back on… and more as my weight bounced back. From my current standpoint, the annoying thing is that in retrospect I wasn’t overweight at all, except perhaps minimally so there was no reason to keep telling me I *was* ‘fat’. The result of the constant comments was that I assumed I *was* fat and pretty much lived up to the description.
There were other things to take into account which really don’t add much to the story, other than commenting that the result of all this was that I became an ’emotional eater’. When I feel stressed, I eat, when I’m unhappy, I eat. I like the feeling of having a full stomach and when I’m home, I’m constantly grazing and on the lookout for more ‘treats’.
Obviously, I’ve tried repeatedly to diet and nothing has worked. Having said that there *were* times I was almost where I needed to be. I went through a golden period when I was a mature student in college where I lost almost all the excess weight. Though I say so myself, I looked good. I played squash, badminton, and even jogged around but it all went to pieces because of a number of events that again needn’t be covered here. The result was I ended up in Australia still eating what I used to, but because of the heat, being far less energetic. Over the years I put on weight slowly, until during the last year or so I ballooned to my current weight. I’m now well into danger territory, my weight, my age and my sedentary lifestyle mean I am at severe risk of a stroke, heart attack or a hundred other issues. If I want to live for a few more years I *must* lose all this flab.
The Eclectic Interweb 