Not proud

I am not proud of these moments. these pictures.  but they are necessary to tell my story.  This is me in 2007, 2008.  I weighed in at over 400 pounds.  Not a proud moment.
Do you think that I thought I looked bad?  No.
Do you think that I thought about losing weight?  Yes.  all the time.
When confronted I retracted. Ate to cover my feelings of inadequacy. Of not having will power. Of not being able to control my eating/food addiction.
Do you think, at times, I was, embarrassed by my looks, by the continuous "same" clothes I wore. over and over again?  Yes. of course.
But to tell my story, to tell of my change, my lifestyle change. is emotional to say the very least.

The change of eating habits literally changed overnight.

The change. of my life. was at least, 25 + years in the making.  I will ponder this question always:  what took me so long to make that change?  To prove to myself and all the nay-sayers that I am worthy; I do have will-power, I can make a change. ON MY OWN.

My biggest problem is looking back.  Because you have to look back to move forward.  Looking back at pictures of yourself - hard. not proud.  And if you know ANYTHING about me is that I loved to take pictures.  And on rare occasions when I thought I could appear in the back of a picture or make myself look smaller, I did.  To look back on those pictures is again, hard. hard moments - physically, mentally and emotionally. To see for yourself, the same clothes, worn over and over again, in pictures is surreal.

Last night at a function, I was talking to one of my close friends.  She said how great I look and how she remembered me wearing the same navy dress every time I would appear on TV.  I admitted to her that I had ordered at least 5-10 of those dresses and would wear them every other day, a different color.  Not proud.  Hard to admit.  Hard to have someone tell you that.  not proud. one bit.