I think I first noticed my weight around the 4th grade. There were kids at school that called me things like "fatty fatty 2by4" and "arianna, king of the asian apes" which nowadays, thinking back, made no fucking sense at all, but it still hurt because herds of kids would get together and sing it at me. I didn't really start to have issues with food until a friend of mine, Niki, introduced me to vomiting. She showed me how to throw up my food, which I began to do, though not regularly. We would get together and eat a tub of ice cream and licorice last because for some reason, you always threw up what you ate last, last. Ice cream felt cool coming back up my throat, all foamy and still cold.

I binged but didn't vomit a lot of the time, so that was kind of a factor too. I loved food, but I ate when I wasn't hungry, I ate when I was bored, or because I wanted to taste something, but I wouldn't just taste it, I would eat a whole pile of it.

All through elementary school and junior high I was teased, comments were made, and still, I wasn't really that large. I never broke 200 lbs. The closest I got was when three or four years ago when I hit 195lbs. When I was 16 or 17, I was between 165 and 170 pounds. I think when I was 13 I was 125-130 pounds. So I was certainly heavy, but by no means obese. Nevertheless, children were cruel. And the more I hurt, the more I ate.

I was a stepchild. My mother remarried when I was 6, and he and I got along fine until I was about 10, when my brother was born. From then on it was a battle to be loved, in my opinion. If you are an only child for ten years, and you go from getting ALL the attention to NO attention whatsoever, it's a pretty drastic change. My mother and stepfather were not conscious of this change, they didn't prepare for it, they didn't make any efforts to help me with it. My stepfather and my relationship started to suffer, we didn't get along at all.

As a teenager, he couldn't handle me one bit. He just got angrier and angrier and was a bit more rough with me than should be permitted. My mother told me I deserved it, that's when I moved up to Whistler.

Anyway, the point of all that was that I ate to fill the needs of lonliness, frustration, anger etc. I would become so angry and would have no where to vent it that I would just become frustrated, break things, break down and cry, cut myself a little, wish I had the cowardice to kill myself. Then I would eat.

I was also somewhat addicted to sex, in that I was so lonely, that I would have sex with guys to make myself feel wanted and sexy. I never had orgasms. Not one. I had no self esteem, no love for myself. I was pretty numb.

When I was around 16, I tried Diet Centre, a prepackaged food place. It worked for a bit, I got down to 165lbs, and I looked ok. I was learning to dress better. But I couldn't stand the packaged food. So I quit that. I tried the old style of weight watchers at one point too, all the measuring of food and calorie counting. Nope. I hated all the measuring and being obsessed with my food.

I also tried Jenny Jones, the food was better, but it was so useless for me that I can't even remember if I lost any weight anyway. So I just forgot it. I went to live in Whistler. I was a little lighter there because I snowboarded so much, but not a significant amount. I always felt very heavy and ugly in whistler.

I was always a semi-workouter. I worked out, but not consistently and not enough. I liked to walk, and I did that a lot, but you have to change what you're eating too, and I didn't.After leaving Whistler, I had a breast reduction.

At the age of 21, I was finally diagnosed as depressed, and was prescribed anti-depressants. It made perfect sense. I had never attempted suicide, but had thought about it frequently.

When I lived in the UK, my weight went up and down between me starving myself, drinking only nutrient shakes. I drank a lot, I did a fair bit of ecstasy. So when I left Britain for the second time, I was the heaviest ever. 194lbs.

Couple that with being in a committed and comfortable relationship, I really let go. There were times when I would lose a little, working out really hard for two months, but then I would just lose it and not go for a month and would have to start all over again.

I started running with Shirley, my ex's mother. I wanted to do it, get in shape and be able to run the 10k SunRun. I started eating very litely, and I took Xenadrine, which is basically ephedrine, which reacts basically like speed. It was so hard on my heart and my system, I often thought I was going to die.

A year and a half ago, I had a large section of fat and skin removed from my lower abdomen. There was an area there that hung down, like a lobe kinda. I had a consultation with a specialist who told me that no matter how much weight I lost, the skin would not go back to flat. So I said, let's do it. And I did. Now I'm scarred in two places on my front, but they're faint, and get fainter. I regret the surgeries sometimes, but for the most part, I'm glad I did it.

Now with this part of my belly gone, it was easier for me to run, to strech, to work out, all those things. So you can see where I perpetuated the idea that because I was thinner, i was able to be happier. But I think there's still some validity in the ability to move better because I was more compact.

Since then, I waffled around 175lbs until last February, when I saw a fellow choir member arrive, and she had lost an INSANE amount of weight. So I asked her how and she said weight watchers. So I took her advice and tried it, with my grandmother's help who said she would pay for it and give me some extra money each month as long as I continued to lose weight. So I did. On weight watchers I lost 12lbs rather quickly, but then I plateaued a bit, and found that I was hungry all the time. I found that I would cheat a little too much, and that the points weren't nearly enough for me to stay full during the day.

I had heard enough about Atkins over the years, and then my dad called me and in his salesman way said "honey, you gotta try this. I lost 20 pounds in two months etc" I said no at that time because I was vegetarian, and the Atkins requires that you eat meat. Finally, after staying at 165 pounds and even gaining a little bit, I started the atkins.

Promptly I dropped 6 pounds, and have been losing slowly but surely ever since, with a couple of mini-plateaus, and now I'm 155.5. 20lbs lighter than when I started back in Feb. I am working out more, and paying more attention to how I feel, though I still let the scale rule me sometimes. If I've gained, I try not to be upset about it, but it's hard sometimes. Just take it day to day and eat things that taste good, and are healthy and give me what I need to function and not starve. It's encouraging to see the effects of hard work on your body.

When I compare myself now with myself then, I see what a bad state I was in back in my teens, how depressed, sad, lonely, frustrated, all those things. I've come a long long long way, and I'm proud of myself. I've started to regain who I am.