I am so amazed and impressed by the women on this site. I think I am at a healthy weight for an American woman, 130 as of this morning, but that hasn’t always been the case. When I graduated grad school, I was fat. Most of the women in my family are obese, and many are morbidly obese. My mother was an obsessive dieter, and destroyed her thyroid to the point where she will be on meds for the rest of her life. My aunts died in their early forties from obesity-related illnesses. My younger sister had gastric by-pass last year, at the suggestion of her doctor, who expressed worry that she may also die young. Keeping trim has been a lifelong struggle for me, including starving myself, taking diet pills, over-exercising, binging and purging. I’m not sure I have it completely under control, which is something my husband doesn’t know, and I fear him discovering. I’ve lived with a bad body image my entire life, I have hated watching my family die from obesity-related illnesses, and I fear the same fate. I was 33 when my daughter was born, and married for 13 years. We waited because I was afraid of being pregnant, and my husband was very patient. I’m turning 36 soon, and my husband has been begging for a second child, and he is losing patience with me. He tries to be understanding, but we always said we’d have a big family. I gained 37 pounds during the pregnancy, lost almost 20 of that in the first week post-partum, and only lost maybe 2 pounds over the next two years. I breastfed her for almost 16 months, yet I didn’t shed the weight. I tried to lose weight, ate healthy foods and exercised, but didn’t take pills or starve myself. Right before her second birthday, I finally started to shed the weight, but it is mostly because I really don’t eat much anymore and I walk hours everyday. Today, I weigh in at exactly what I weighed when I got pregnant, but I look nothing like I used to. I have cellulite everywhere – on my legs and bottom most of all, but also on my arms and back. Losing the weight was such a battle, and I fear going through that struggle again, and I fear getting even more cellulite. As I get older, I know that it’s now or never if I want more children, and I am ready to go for it again. I have a little red-haired, blue-eyed girl who is beyond beautiful. She’s two and a half now, and I love being her mommy. I really want to give her a brother or sister, but I am afraid. I can’t seem to shake the fear of being pregnant again. I fear what it will do to my body. Even though I have already been through it, and can hide the cellulite I now have under clothing, I worry that I will get more of it, or that my weight will balloon. I don’t like to starve myself, but it seems to be the only thing that works to keep the weight off. I took these pictures an hour ago. The cellulite doesn’t come through that well – I am not a great photographer – but it is everywhere.
