When I was born on August 4, 1950 I weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces. Not exactly a heavyweight! As a young child I was not really heavy. Through my childhood years I had a certain amount of "baby fat," but as I got older it turned into a more womanly, well-endowed figure. My curvaceous figure wound up being more of a problem than my baby fat since children can be so cruel. My prematurely being well-developed gave my schoolmates a subject with which to taunt me - at least until other girls caught up to me. And it also created a problem with my obtaining a career goal, since the ballet director felt that my buxom, 125-pound, pear-shape was not appropriate for a ballerina. My shape was the reason he gave for not allowing me to enter into the Ballet Corps, even though he used me to demonstrate in his classes.

During my teen years I fluctuated between 125 and 130 pounds. I tried many fad diets to lose weight (such as the burnt toast and Jello diet). At 5 feet 4 inches tall, I thought I should weigh around 110. I often hated getting attention because of my "large" breasts, small waist, and "large" hips.

After graduating Canarsie High School in June of 1968, I attended Taylor Business Institute. I pursued a one year degree in Fashion Merchandising because I did not have faith in my ability to succeed in college, plus I needed to get some job skills since I would have to get a job after I married in August of 1969. In April of 1969 I wound up needing surgery. A grapefruit sized cyst, along with my left ovary and my appendix, was removed. The horizontal incision (a "bikini cut") spanned the width of my stomach. After weeks of recuperation I should have gone back to the active life I'd been living (I had switched from Ballet to Modern Dance, and loved popular dancing, bowling, bicycling, and horseback riding), but instead became more sedentary. My doctor had not told me that I could go back to my active lifestyle, and for a long time afterwards I was afraid that I might hurt myself if I did.

After graduating in June, I got a job as a secretary in a department store chain's buying office. That August (20 days after my 19th birthday) I got married. I weighed 129 (after losing about 5 pounds via a fad diet). My new, quite overweight, husband became my eating partner. Even though I had to walk up four flights of stairs to our apartment and, in the summer, and occasionally rode my bike (which I had to carry up and down those stairs), our eating habits won over any exercise I got - especially when, after a year at my job, I quit working. (My husband and I had agreed that I would only work for one year while he finished college and he got a job.) At one point we both went on Weight Watchers (his mother copied the diet's plan for us). At the time, the plan was very restrictive (e.g.: instead of real pasta, I had to julienne-slice celery and cook that as imitation pasta). In about six to eight months, he lost 85 pounds, while eating lots of extras. Even though I never deviated or noshed on any of the "free" foods that were allowed, I lost only 20 pounds. I was extremely frustrated and went back to my old eating habits.

In 1972 I tried Dr. Atkin's Diet. I lost 33 pounds in one and a half months. I kept it off for almost a year. I even tried fasting. In a week I lost 7 pounds. Three days afterwards, I'd regained it all. A free hypnosis session had no real effect upon me. When after 4 1/2 years of marriage I separated from my husband, I weighed about 185 pounds.

For the next few years, while attending Brooklyn College, I quickly went on and off various diets. Since the most success I had had was with the Atkin's Diet, I tried that again. I was on that diet when I met my 2nd husband. In June of 1978 I graduated from college with a BA degree in Early Childhood Education and then married my present husband. I weighed 175. Because he made me promise to keep a Kosher home, I could no longer cook the bacon-cheese burgers and eat the fried pork rinds that kept me satisfied on that diet. My weight quickly climbed, and my new husband dared me to lose 10 pounds. I don't remember how I did it, but I did. Of course, it didn't stay off. I soon weighed 215 pounds.

A little over a year after we married, we moved from Brooklyn to Long Island. In April of 1980 I found out that I was pregnant. During the pregnancy I initially lost 6 pounds and then gained 7 pounds eating pretty much the way I normally did (I even stopped off at Dunkin Donuts after each doctor's appointment). No one could believe that I had only gained one pound during my pregnancy without actually trying to lose weight. But that's what had happened. After giving birth (on January 3, 1981) I lost 23 pounds. I was a new mom, no longer working in a job I loved (while in Brooklyn, I had become a word processing secretary for a major magazine publishing company in New York City). And I was lonely since I hadn't had a chance to make any friends near our new home because of my long commute to work. The weight began to climb upward. Desperate, I found a hypnotherapist who gave me about 6 sessions for $100, which I paid for with the money my parents had given me for my birthday. I was too ashamed to tell my husband, so I told him I was going shopping at the mall. The sessions didn't work at all. By the end of August my weight was up to 218 pounds, at which time I joined NutriSystem and lost 33 pounds.

By January of 1982 I'd begun struggling again, and added Overeaters Anonymous to my weight loss efforts. March 1982 saw me at 160. I'd lost 58 pounds, but I became frustrated and resentful of having to work so hard to lose weight and of having to deny myself the pleasure of eating what others could eat. I began yo-yoing again. After adding exercise to my plan, July saw me at 151 1/2. But by October I'd regained around 30 pounds. The roller coaster of weight loss and gain continued.

After giving birth to my son on September 29, 1983, I weighed 226 pounds. Only 18 pounds were due to "baby weight." When my son was almost 4 I finally put my Education Degree to use, and got a job at the nursery school he attended. After 2 1/2 years of my weight fluctuating, but always getting back to around 226, I decided to be more serious about losing weight.

Between April of 1986 and November of 1988, starting at 222 pounds, I lost 81 1/2 pounds. Seventy pounds were lost via Herbalife, and the remainder on Weight Watchers and Over Eaters Anonymous (for support). I also exercised, but not as much as when I had done when I was on NutriSystem. I actually was within seven pounds of the goal weight Weight Watchers set for me, when I became frustrated. When I went clothes shopping I had difficulty fitting consistently into either 14s or 16s because of my full hips and thighs, and I felt like my efforts were for nothing. I began to eat again. Within a few months I had regained everything I'd lost plus more.

I gave up on losing weight for awhile. Yes, I occasionally tried some new diet I'd heard about, and even rejoined Weight Watchers for a short time, but I really didn't put much effort into it. I fluctuated up and down, but finally hit a high around 275 pounds, where I basically stayed (within a few pounds). In June of 1995 I tried the then latest version of Weight Watchers, lost over 50 pounds, and quit again. Went back up to 275 or so.

In March of 1998 I found my birth mother (I had found out two years before that that I was adopted - that story can be found at: IRM'S LDA STORY). She and her sister are both extremely obese and have various health problems which are aggravated by their weight. Watching them struggling to walk with either a cane or a walker, and having to stop every few minutes because my birth mother becomes out of breath easily is painful for me to watch. Especially since I know I look so much like my birth mother and could wind up in the same situation if I continue to gain weight. I began to think more about what I was doing to myself with my destructive eating patterns. Then, in May of 2000, getting nearer and nearer to my 50th birthday, I looked at my reflection in a store window, almost didn't realize it was me, and realized I hated myself. Every time I saw myself in a mirror or other reflective surface, I felt disgust and overwhelming sadness. I decided that I needed to do something. I still wasn't totally "ready" to lose, but I'd heard that Weight Watchers' special offer of free registration was about to end, so I rejoined since I was curious about the new program.

When I saw the changes Weight Watchers had made to the plan, I was a bit panicky. Instead of accounting for things like proteins, vegetables, and starches as several of their previous plans had done, basically the 1-2-3 Success Plan lumps everything together and allots daily point ranges that depend upon how much you weigh. I got totally caught up in trying to figure out how to convert my old Weight Watchers recipes, etc. to this new plan's guidelines. I was almost totally immobilized by the thought of it all. While I was trying to learn about this new plan, I decided to visit the Weight Watchers, Inc. web site. I discovered that it had an online support group. While visiting the support group, I happened to read a post which mentioned another online site with a support group, HealthDiscovery.net. I decided to visit that site, and subsequently visited its support group, Boot Camp Buddies. I found out that if you wish to be active in the group, you must agree to their philosophy when registering. They are a "tough love" kind of group. They believe the only way to succeed is to intend to stay on program (OP) 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They realize that sometimes, a person may "slip," but they expect the person to immediately get right back OP. No whining allowed. And certainly no planning to deviate from the WW program. When I read this philosophy I thought, "Oh, sure! If I could do that I'd be slim by now!" I really doubted that I could do it. But I decided to join and lurk for a while.

For two weeks I observed, occasionally posting congratulatory comments when someone posted their weight loss or how they got through a rough experience without going off program. I kept seeing so many other people succeeding. I saw how the fairly rare slip of a member was treated. I saw the love, caring, and support they gave each other. Through reading many members' posts, and even receiving some encouraging responses to my own posts, I started to feel hopeful that I could at least make a start at losing weight. I got the feeling that I might just be like all these other people. They had struggled just like I had. Most of them had also felt hopeless and like a failure, as I did. Many described the same feelings of inadequacy and low-self esteem I felt about myself, and were now overcoming these negative feelings. Through their words I felt a strength. A feeling that I was entitled as much as anyone else in this world to the happiness being slim and healthy would bring. And I decided to try it. I became an active member of the group, receiving lots of encouragement, information, and caring from its many successful members (over 1700 at the time I'm writing this), while continuing to attend weekly weigh-ins and meetings at my neighborhood's Weight Watchers office. Amazingly, I have been OP since June 5, 2000. And I hope I can say this from now on.

	--Ilene       Don't give up before the good stuff happens!
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