It’s been 8 years since I have been a “normal” weight.  Since then, I have gained an incredible amount of weight.  In the high double digits.  I can’t even go into to numbers, mainly because I don’t know them, and even if I did, at this point, I would be too ashamed to share them.

It’s horrifying what has happened over the past decade with my weight. I make it sound as though I didn’t participate in this.  In some ways, I didn’t.  I simply wasn’t present half the time where I was eating cookie after cookie and pint after pint of ice cream.

But I’m not really writing to continue to lament the situation.  I’m writing to be, in some ways, accountable to achieving my goal of resolving this unacceptable state I am in. And to articulate the thoughts and behaviors that have brought me to this place, and the thoughts and behaviors that will bring me out of this place.

I have already started on the path to resolution.  I have been mindful of my caloric intake every day over the past 30 days, entering the food I eat into a diary.  And I am happy to say that I have stayed within the guidelines for each week since I started.

This is a miracle.  A veritable miracle. You’ll learn why soon enough.

There are so many things to say.  How to organize the narrative, what to share, what not to share, and more importantly: WHY share?  Why go public with something that has been so intensely painful and shameful for me?  A few reasons, really.  To be accountable.  To be honest. To be free of the weight, both figuratively and literally.  To let it go by letting it out.  And – if it helps anyone else along the way to not feel so hopeless or alone in their pain and battle of the bulge and the binge, well, that would just be amazing.

I’m on the path.  Trudging the road to happy destiny, and abundant health.