What Is Your Issue?

I've considered weight and diet to be an issue all my life.  I was on my first diet that I remember when I was in kindergarten. But all that dieting just made me fatter and fatter. Step by step I made it all the way up to 410 lbs.  Then I stayed there for MANY years.  That seemed to be where my body  wanted to stay.  No matter if I  ate, starved, binged, dieted, exercised or was a couch potato, that is where my weight stayed for about 20 years.  Not 409, not 411, steady at 410.  I consider that to be a major plateau!   A friend who is also a Pastor/Counselor  asked me once how and when food, weight and diet all became an issue in my life.  The only answer I could give him was that it just always was. He said that wasn't an answer. He then encouraged me to pray & think about it. If we can figure out how and why something  starts then we can deal with the cause instead of just the symptoms.   So I went home  & pondered, prayed, cried, went to bed, pulled the cover over my head and slept.  Long  story short, I  found some answers in a dream and some detective research work. (I may share the dream and that story sometime if anyone is intrerested.)  It came down to the fact that when I was very little, my little self determined that life was too difficult and I didn't want to live.  Excess weight was a blessing and a curse because it protected and hurt me at the same time.  I realized that I was a "failure to thrive" baby who had chosen not to live  that became a "failure to thrive" adult who continued that choice.  I had never actually tried to kill myself outright, but I was killing myself in a variety of ways daily.    Was it true? Why and how? What does it mean and how do I deal with it as an adult? I first needed to commit to choosing LIFE. Not just once, but many times daily.  Whenever choices presented themselves, my answer needed to become, "I CHOOSE LIFE" and act accordingly.   I also made a commitment to feed and take care of myself even if nobody else did.  I would make myself a priority and tend to my needs like I would a small child that needed me.  The scale started moving!  No deprivation diets.  No marathon exercise binges.  No guilt or shame, just kindness, love for myself & freedom to continue to CHOOSE LIFE.  When I was in the 9th grade my dad chased me around the house insisting that I lose weight or he would punish me because I weighed so much at that time that I would NEVER want to be that weight. I was past the point of just staying at that weight and growing into it. I was 5'10" then and i still am. 170 is what I weighed then and is in the normal range for my height. It is now my goal and I am about 130 pounds closer to that goal as progress continues.  I needed to realize that weight was a symptom instead of a real issue so that I could deal with the actual issue. What about you? What is your issue? Do you need to CHOOSE LIFE and loving yourself?