A history lesson

Not really a history lesson… just a description of my past which has gotten me right where I am today. I come from an amazing family. I mean AMAZING. We are very tight.. my cousins are like my brothers/sisters, my aunts and uncles are like my second parents. I even lived with my Aunt, Uncle and 2 cousins (who really are my second parents and sisters) for years while I was attending college. That’s right. They had to put up with me. My poor Uncle too… 6 women (my granny lived upstairs) and him. Tough life! Anyway, you get the point.. amazing family. When I started middle school my father suffered his first heart attack and my mother was diagnosed with a tumor. Nothing too serious she was just going to have to have surgery. I felt like school was getting harder, everyone was getting sick and I was an emotional mess without realizing it. Hormones were raging and I felt like my parents were always telling me no. So what did I turn to for comfort?? Food. I snuck food, hid food in my room, etc. I have always been a petite girl so the over eating had my short self at 180lbs at my highest weight. Picture of Christmas 1999 and one from a vacation in 2000:

I held onto the weight through middle school and into high school where the bullying and name calling was awful. I never had a boyfriend (I had many crushes though!) and was always “the fat friend”. I even found out later on in life that people who I considered my friends referred to me as “fat Shanon”. How nice right? I was always the friend left out of being invited places… I even got left out of the limo for my prom. All of my “friends” got a limo but they could only fit5 couples.. I would be 6. So I had to make other arrangements. That is something that has stuck with me to this day. But I would not change it. All of these things made me the person I am today. (Picture of me before my prom.. oh the style then)

My senior year of high school my Mom brought up joining weight watchers. She was smart in her wording and told me she wanted to lose some weight but did not want to join herself. This push, coupled with my doctor telling me I was obese and was going to following in my fathers heart disease footsteps was all I needed. I joined weight watchers and ended up losing 40ish lbs. I spent most of college maintaining this weight. I would work out and eat.. sometimes over eat.. and I did my fair share of partying. I enjoyed college but I still did not feel right about myself. I met my best friend and she turned me onto running. And my love affair with running began! It grew while I was in graduate school and I really began increasing my miles and decreasing the amount of food I was eating. A bit too much.. right after graduating with my masters I was restricting calories so much I weighed about 100lbs. At this point I still thought I needed to lose weight and focused on all the negative things I saw in my mind when I looked in the mirror. I began marathon training.
 

Well, when you are training for a marathon you become hungry. Just not a little bit hungry.. but a lot a bit hungry. To the point where I was polishing off a whole box of cereal at a time on my own after my 10 mile runs. Ugh that awful feeling!! Well this ended up turning into binging and purging. During the next few years my life was am emotional roller coaster with loved ones passing away, my relationship with my ex coming to an end and job insecurities. My weight ballooned back up to 135lbs.

As I said in my first post eating disorders take over your life. I am not letting this happen anymore. I continue to exercise (I LOVE exercising) but I am on a journey to find a healthy relationship with my body, mind and food.

Sorry about the long post! I know I left a whole butt-load of things out but I felt this post was long enough!! I wanted you all to know a little bit about my past and the journey I am on to find health and happiness.

Happy Friday :)