I'm going to be honest for a change

Yeah. So I stepped on the scale on Monday of this week and saw a number I've never seen before. A number higher than even when I was pregnant with my first son (I gained a whooping 76 pounds with my first pregnancy). A number so high that I realize I HAVE to do something about my weight. I realize that I am now closer to 300 lbs than 200lbs. Yes, I have tipped over to.....drum roll please..... 260 lbs. There I typed it. It's in black and white for all of my three readers of this blog to see. No more hiding, no more justifications, no more lying to myself about the state of my health, just the plain hard facts. Two. Hundred. Sixty. I am fat and my health is in jeopardy.

It's not that I don't know how to lose weight. I've done it before quite successfully and in a healthy manner. I know what to eat, how much to eat and what to avoid. I know all the ways to keep myself on the right path. I know what types of exercise are most enjoyable for me and how to get the best results. So.....what's the problem? The problem is I don't know exactly what the problem is. But I have some idea....

I know I'm a stress eater. I have no other coping skills for high doses of stress than food. I can manages small-medium amounts of stress in healthy ways but big stress, no. I go straight for the fridge and chew and swallow until the knot in my stomach unclenches. There gets to be a point when I feel so torn in so many directions, so buried by the tasks at hand, so lost, so lonely, so embarrassed by my behavior that the only cure I know is to shove large amounts of food down my throat until my stomach is so full it can't be a big ball of stress anymore. I have found that when I try to just "power through" this stress and ignore my need to eat to "unclench" that it results in an even bigger binge somewhere later down the road. I can only ignore the tight stomach for so long before the beast needs to be "fed".

I have tried everything I can think of to reduce the effects of stress on me other than food. None of it works long term because none of it is as easy or satisfying as eating an enormous bowl of ice cream. I once heard someone say, "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." My honest response to that was, pardon my french but, bullshit. Food is my fast, easy fix that always makes me feel good. It gets me high. Food always comes through for me setting off that chemical reaction so all those little neurons or whatever, pump out the "happy hormones" until I feel like I'm on top of the world....for a while. It's a drug for me and I'm a total addict. I have lost the ability to fix my inner problems any other way.

I do realize now that my desire for food has taken over and it is now in control instead of me or better yet God. I said I was going to be honest and I meant it. I can't control this. I'm paralyzed, I can't solve this problem I have. But I still cling to the hope that He can. I have been praying and will continue to pray that God shows me what to do to get this desire for food out of the "driver's seat" in my life and put Him back in it. It sounds so cliche and it is a little bit but that doesn't make it true. I need God because I'm at the bottom of the barrel, I have nowhere else to go...I have lost my battle of the bulge. But I remain confident that nothing is impossible for God. I just have to turn it over to Him however, I need Him to help me do even that!

Prayer sisters! I ask for prayer. Prayer that I would allow God to do what needs to be done in my life. That I would soften, let my pride go and trust Him implicitly. Prayer that I would find the keys to permanent weight control. Prayer that I would listen when He tells me how to be free.

I weigh 260 lbs. I'm fat, out-of-shape and out of control. I am just a bite away from 300 lbs or more, I have one toe in the grave. It's time to be honest with myself and everyone. This post is my first step.