Why Losing 70 Pounds Did Not Solve All My Problems

I used to be really fat. I'm still not skinny, but I used to be fatter than I am now. My weight was something I had struggled with my whole life. So as you can imagine, my self confidence was pretty low. I was insecure about how I looked and that translated into insecurity in almost every aspect of my life.

I always thought that if only I was skinny, everything would be better. I would come to find out that this wasn't the case.


It started on New Years Day, 2013. I was 22 years old and I decided I was done being fat. I made the resolution to lose weight. I didn't know how much, but losing any at all would have been an accomplishment for me.

I started small. I gave up soda, I counted my calories, and I worked out sometimes. Things were going pretty well. I was slowly losing a little weight. But things weren't moving fast enough for me. I was impatient.

There is a fine line somewhere between healthy dieting and obsessive dieting, and I crossed it.

I was running everyday, more if I could. I was barely eating, if I even ate. At first, I felt great. I was losing weight more quickly and people were noticing. The positive feedback I received kept me going. Because I wasn't scarily underweight, nobody suspected that I could be harming myself.

I started to notice that I was being treated differently. People held the door open for me more often. They smiled at me more, they were nicer. I was hit on by strangers, which I wasn't really used to.

All of the sudden, I wasn't invisible anymore.

Yet for some reason, I was more unhappy than I was before. I felt sick all the time. I had no energy, I was losing my hair. I was grumpy all the time, probably because I was hungry. I still hated my body.

My actual before and after photo

It's been about 4 years since I started down that slippery slope, and thankfully I've found myself at a happy medium. I didn't do it by myself though. My mom supported me, and my doctor worked with me, and I feel happier and healthier now than I ever did before.

Yeah, my body still isn't perfect. I know that. But the difference between then and now is that now, I love my body. It does a lot of great things for me.
It gets me up in the morning.
It plays with my puppy.
It's pretty good at cuddling.
It can drive a stick shift.
It works hard for me.
It can play the ukulele.
It can write down all these thoughts I have.
It has endured all the crap I've put it through and it still going strong.

Losing 70 pounds did not solve all of my problems. But gaining some of that weight back helped with a few of them.