Where it began

The weight struggle for me began at about age 9. I was active as a chubby teen and played basketball and softball, but my eating habits were terrible. I never ate a vegetable and one summer, ate an ice cream sundae with oreo's and Magic Shell for breakfast EVERY MORNING. While I won't bore you with all the details, I tried everything, was briefly successful with all of it, then stopped whatever program I was on and gained all the weight I'd lost plus about 30 pounds. This happened every time. If I stayed on a plan more than 2 weeks, it was a great accomplishment (to be rewarded with some sort of chocolate). The heaviest I weighed that I actually know the number was 283. I believe that I did, at some point, reach or surpass 300 lbs. I stopped weighing myself. I was healthy - the only real issue I had was that my knees were in bad shape from a high school injury, made worse by carrying around 150 extra pounds. In December of 2005, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and that's when I really got motivated.