Since the beginning of time

....Well, my time anyway.  A bit of explanation is in order.  I was a chubby kid starting around the age of nine.  At 19 I gained a lot of weight, went on the unhealthy Atkins diet, lost 40 pounds.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but I am five feet tall.  That's pretty short so five pounds affects me a bit more drastically than the rest of you folks.

As long as I can remember I've been obsessed with food.   Eating it, trying not to eat it, reading labels, thinking about it, dreaming about it while I sleep, and wishing, hoping, dreaming of being really thin.

Here's a revealtion:  I'm not fat.  I have some jiggle and a gut I'd like to get rid of and it's all I can think of.  I'd desperately like to drop my nicotine habit, but I'd keep it if I can get rid of the gut.  At five feet tall and 115 pounds, I plateaued about 8 years ago it seems.  I want to wear a bathing suit, which I have not since the age of ten.

Some days I cannot bear to look in the mirror.  Other days I stare and think, "This isn't so bad.  I got trim here, get rid of that...."  But I also wonder if no matter how thin I got, would I always see myself as fat?  I know many girls who've had (and still have) eating disorders. 

My mom is one.  After I was born she weighed close to 300lb at 5'4".  She used to  workout to Jane Fonda and ate ONE apple a day--that's all.  She's certainly much more healthy these days. She doesn't know about my crazy way of thinking.  Let's keep that one between us.  My cousin, April is another.  She ate one teeny tiny yogurt cup each day.  She was sickly skinny.  She is eating these days, but oddly obessed with her thighs. (I think we all do that.  Not that I mean we all obsess with April's thighs; our own thighs of course))  She's my council and advises me on how to eat healthily occasionally.

I'll probably post a series of my emails to April because a lot times I just do not feel like writing.