I have been obese all of my life. It was tough to deal with, but over time you learn to just accept the fact that you are fat.
That is what I did. Probably by the time I was in my mid-teen years, I really did not care much what others thought or even said about my weight. I had tried and tried to lose weight, but if you try and fail over and over again, you learn that it might be best to accept who you are.
Weight Watchers
When I was a young child, I believe it was in the first or second grade, I was so heavy that I was already attending Weight Watchers. We lived in Oregon at the time, in a small town called Clatskanie. We would go to the Weight Watchers meetings weekly in Longview, Washington, which was a 30 to 45-minute drive.
Every week I would go get on the scale. Results were never great, but I would lose a small amount of weight most of the time. It is hard when you are a kid to strive and strive for only a very small reward. Really, the reward was just hearing that I lost a half pound or something. It seemed that it was never enough weight that it would be noticeable and you would get attention for your accomplishment. Frankly, it was tough being a kid and being obese.
Moving
Another thing that made things tough was that my family moved a lot! We lived all over the USA, and even in South Africa too! Most of the time we would live in a place for just a couple years, and then my Dad would be transferred to another place. It was tough to put down roots or to establish firm friendships.
When you are a kid, if you have something wrong with you, the other kids tease you. Kids can be cruel. By the time that I would get close enough to the other kids that my weight was not a big issue to them, it would be time for us to move to a different city or state. Even to this day, I do not really have many (any?) close friendships with people that were part of my childhood. Oh, I have close friendships with many adults that I met after I became an adult, but none, or very few, with kids that I became friends with when I was young.
Was I ever thin?
Well, that is a good question! I am sure that when I was very young, I was thin. I was a normal weight at birth. But, to be honest, I do not have any memories of being thin. I really don’t know what it would be like to be thin.
At this point in my life (age 54), I am much thinner than I have been for many years. I am very close now to the weight that I was when I graduated High School. But, that is not thin. A few years back, I was about 30 pounds lighter than I am now, and I felt thin at that time, but I was about 250 pounds at that time! That felt thin to me, though. Over the past few years, though, I started taking insulin, and insulin causes most people to gain weight. I gained about 70 pounds from the insulin, and I have since lost about 40 of those pounds. I do hope to get back to about 250 or lower, I felt good at that weight, and I am striving to achieve that.
My thoughts
So, as far as my childhood goes, in relation to my body type and my weight, these are my feelings. It was a tough childhood because of my weight. But, I made it through, and I think I became a good and relatively successful person. So, I can’t complain!
