How did I get here?

Hi, My name is Katie and I am a compulsive over eater.

:::Hi Katie:::

I never had the best relationship with food. I can remember eating snickers and coke for breakfast everyday before school and eating dinner sometime after work if I was hungry. If I wasn't hungry I didn't eat.

We never sat at the table as a family to eat unless it was Sunday, and the older I got the less we did this on Sundays'. I ate alone most of the time or with my friends. If I was home when my parents ate then of course I ate with them, but this was usually on the couch in front of the television.

Even though my eating habits needed work I don't think I had a problem with emotional eating then. I think my problems began when Alyssa was diagnosed with seizures.

Alyssa is my oldest daughter and when she was 9 months old she started having over 100 seizures a day, everyday. This crushed my world. I had just married the man of my dreams, moved half way across the US from my family, and sent my husband off to his first tour of Iraq.

On top of all of this I was pregnant with our son. My world shattered. I had so much on my plate that the only thing that got me through was food. I ate  to take away the loneliness that I was feeling since my husband was in Iraq and my family was far away. I ate because I was pregnant. I ate because I had watched Alyssa have seizure after seizure and felt completely helpless. I ate because.

Within the next 9 months I gained 96 pounds. Everyone said it was 'the baby' but it wasn't. It was the beginning to my battle. That was almost 8 years ago. The road has been long and hard since then and the weight has continued to climb. I have continued to eat when I was faced with uncomfortable situations.

Alyssa had seizures for over 4 years, my husband was deployed 3 times in 4 years and my best friend was killed in a car accident. So needless to say I had a LOT to eat about and I did it well. I ate so that I was OK. I ate to be 'normal'.

I am glad to be on the road to recovery. I am so glad to be getting better. I am finding that I have completely changed the way that I feel and think about food. I am learning what 'normal' really looks like and I am learning what my 'normal' will take to achieve.


Katie