Lynda left a comment on my blog today. And she gave me the idea of today's post. My good ole story! At the end of her comment she said that I sound such a happy person. Truth is I am. Most of the time. But I have honestly worked very hard for it.

I had a good childhood. I had a good teenagehood. As a child I was skinny, but as a teenager I was not. But I was not really fat, though I had discovered comfort food. However, because I was dancing at the time (I was going to ballet classes since I was 4) I was what someone could call "pleasantly rounded". I had an accident when I was 18 and I had to stay in bed for months and months. I started gaining weight. To cut the long story short, I have gained and lost the same 30 to 50 kilos 3 times in my life. The last time I was really slim was 1997, the year I got married. I was 67 kgs, and I didn't look skinny, but oh so pleasantly rounded again. I started gaining weight in 2000. Slowly at first. A couple of kilos, then 4, then I started moving a little, and then I met a new girlfriend. She was an homosexual woman. We instantly clicked and became best friends. My husband was working a lot at the time. He would leave home at 6 am and come back at 10 in the evening, eat, and sleep. He was relieved I had found a new girlfriend to keep me entertained. I grew fonder and fonder of her.

Again, to cut the long story short, I fell in love with her. It was so strange to me, because I had never feelings for women. Nor have I ever had again after her. We became a couple. I left home, moved in with her, spend 2 wonderful months together, and then things became ugly. With her, and with my family. Although I had asked for a divorce, my husband asked me to give us another try. So I went back home, with my self esteem down the drain, my heart broken, my guilt built to its highest levels, and tons of disgust for myself.

I returned to the low feelings I had at childhood. Only I never realised them back then. I was the first child in my family. I have had a great childhood from two loving parents that did the best they could. I was the queen of the world till my little bro came. Then I went to school. I was such a great student, that I was once again the queen and I started blooming! In the meantime, I made peace inside me with my brother's existence, and realised that I loved him so much. (My brother is now my best friend and has honoured me with a wonderful niece and a gorgeous nephew :)

Before he went to school all family friends and relatives had been telling him that he better be as good as I was when he starts school. So he suddenly became dyslectic. He was repeating letters or whole syllables when talking. My parents took him to a child therapist and he told them that they should make him feel special by turning all their attention to him. He even called me for a session and told me that my parents love me too much and that aint too nice for my little brother, so although they will go on loving me, they should not show it to me as much, so that my brother will be cured. I was six, and my mom still is afraid to give me his address cos she knows I WILL go bomb his place!!!

Anyway, apparently back then I had formed a belief. When I was wonderful and my parents loved and admired me, when I was doing wonderfully at school and my teachers and all appraised me, I was harming my brother, resulting in making my parents sad. In fewer words. My being wonderful should be camouflaged cos it had a bad effect on people I loved.

So when I returned home to my husband, I felt I was such a bad person, that I went into a depression, that would only go away with food. I would go to work, return, and eat, and eat, and eat. At the end of this circle, I weighted at 130 kilos. I had gain 60 kilos in about a year.

Luckily, in the middle of this period, I begun to see a Somatic Phychotherapist. Every day when I wake up, I remind myself to build this man a statue!

I went deep inside me. After tons of garbage I slowly begun to like what I saw. I came into peace with the forever existing issues between mothers and daughters and fathers and daughters and sisters and brothers. I begun to form a very close relationship with my body. I begun to learn how to stop thinking and begin feeling. My entire world changed. My priorities in life changed. I used to believe that work came first, then me, then the rest. Now, my husband, family, friends and myself come first. Work is just the means to pay the bills and the occasional shopping spree. As a young woman, I had developed a concrete theory about not wanting to have children. Ever. I actually believed that noone should have, till we run out of orphans in this world. See, I had to be nice and think globally so that people wouldn't think I am a selfish bitch who wants to do as she wants when she wants and that's why she didn't want to have kids. Big fat bullshit. I was scared to death. I was feeling incompetent. I was feeling unstable. And I was a selfish bitch!

(I am still spending 50 minutes a week in my therapist's place. I feel I still have a long way to go. I want to be as clean as possible from the past before I become a mother. I suspect that the remaining of the road will be more roses than thorns. We will see...)

Through all this roughness, my wonderful husband stood by my side. I was fat and ugly and he would tell me how sexy my ass was. I would get mad at him and scream and yell and call him a liar. He meant it. I am blessed with a man who loved me equally fat or thin, nice or disgusting. Now I can appreciate it. Before I was not able to really admit anything as deeply nice as this.

Anyway, somewhere in 2001 I saw a dietician. Ever since, I have been loosing weight. I have tried different metthods because I like diversity and get easily bored. From that strict dietician, I moved to WW and in March to a holistic doctor. Currently I am following his basic directions and sort of maintaining, but I am seriously considering WW again, because I need some "fun discipline" and toying with the points was that for me. I have periods of non dieting and regaining some back, I have periods of brilliantly dieting and dropping the kilos like a star, and I have periods of learning to maintain.

I fell in love with my husband all over again - we first got together when I was 20 years old - and we are both working on our marriage every single day. We learned that a marriage is a full time job and needs constant commitment. We learned it the hard way and we appreciate it more cos of that. In September my business partner will give birth to her son and after October 10, when I finish with this big congress I am organising, we will start trying to have our baby.

If someone told me 3 years ago that on June 25 2004 I would feel the way I feel, I would believe the things I believe, and that I would be who I am, I would have laughed at their face. Hard. Unkindly.

I am no more afraid or ashamed to feel proud of myself about my achievements. I am no longer feeling guilty for my doings. I honestly regreted what I had to regret. I sincerely apologised to whom I needed to apologised. I am no longer avoiding compliments. I know I will loose the remaining 20 something kilos. In 6 months or 16. I don't care. I know for sure that I will not gain the 40 I lost through out these 3 years. NEVER AGAIN!

I also know, and I let you know too, so you won't form the wrong impression for me, that I am weak. I have ups and downs. I have wonderful days and mediocre days and bad days too. I have mornings that I wake up and feel refreshed and have a great work out on the treadmill, and a fantastic day at work, and eat brilliantly, and have extrasupergreat sex and feel that on top of the world and know, really know that there is nothing better in life than life itself! And then, I have a long working week with tons of crisis and fights with my business partner, and I want to kill my assistant, and eat poorly, and miss a couple of days on the treadmill and feel bad and disappointed of myself, and my husband comes home late from work and I whine and get grumpy and refuse his hugs because all I want is to be left alone and whine and whine and whine. After all I have had 32 years to built my world, and less than 3 to "renovate", so I still have to get used to the newly formed habits of living. But I know, and you should also know, that I am not giving up on me. Because I have learned, the hard way again, that giving up on me, is giving up on the gift of life. And this is an insult. And of all the things I have done in life, insulting life is something I shall never do again.

P.S. Through the last couple of years or less, I have been reading so many diet blogs. To some of these wonderful women out here, I have sent emails with parts of my "how I became an elephant" story. This is almost the whole thing. Almost. Thank you for taking the time to read it.