Why Am I Overweight?

I started reading Bob Greene's "The Best Life Diet" and in the beginning he asks you to really consider three questions. So I decided in light with my goal to be totally honest with myself and accountable to someone other than myself I'd post about it here. Why are you overweight is the first one, and here is my answer...

Ok, so there are the crappy excuses that don’t mean anything…I have a sweet tooth, I’m addicted to sugar, I have to eat chocolate everyday, I have a young baby and 2 other kids plus the dog and a husband so I have no time to exercise, I’m too exhausted to exercise, I hate to cook and junk food is just easier, healthy food costs too much, blah, blah, blah.

Now for the real reasons… I eat to make myself feel better. I’m completely overwhelmed by my life. My house is a wreck and I don’t even know where to begin to make things better. My boys are difficult to deal with, they leave me stressed and exhausted before half the morning is even over. I’m unhappy with so many things about my life. I don’t like where we live…I don’t like the apartment, I don’t like the town, I don’t even really like the state. I feel very alone, I have no friends, and we have no family around us. My husband works long hours and isn’t home a lot, when he is home he spends the majority of his time playing video games. And when he’s not doing that he’s pissy because of the kids or something I’ve done that he’s taken offense to. My entire life is getting up, dealing with my kids, making feeble attempts to take care of the house, going grocery shopping, making school runs, and going to bed. I don’t have anything other than being a mom and because my boys are so difficult I don’t even feel like I’m good at that. Feeling like I’m not good at something is very hard for me. I grew up being the “smart kid”, I got practically straight A’s all the while working 2-3 part time jobs in high school, I was going to go to medical school and become a doctor. So for me now to spend 95% of my time playing peek-a-boo and arguing with my multiple personality 4 year old and asking why for the 597,624,410th time my almost 6 year old is doing something he’s been told not to is difficult for me to accept. I used to feel like I was intelligent and good at things…now I feel like I’m a 4 year old. I’m a perfectionist deep down, so if I don’t think I can do something perfectly I don’t even try…so in all honestly I haven’t ever really, REALLY tried to lose weight. And I have very low self esteem, so I guess I don’t really think I’m worth it. I grew up being teased all the time…by my family, by kids at school. I never really had any close friends and I still don’t, I still wonder what is so wrong with me that people don’t like me. I used to think it was just because I was fat, but then I think somewhere out there has to be someone who can see past what I look like…so either I haven’t found those people yet or something else is making nobody want to be my friend. My father had wanted my mother to have an abortion, my grandmother wished my mother had joined the navy instead of getting pregnant…I felt like I wasn’t wanted by anybody. I started eating to cover up the pain at a very young age and I’m still doing it.

Something about warm chocolate chip cookies and ice cream and creamy milk chocolate, and well anything loaded with sugar and fat just soothes your soul. For about 5 minutes... Of course, ironically, it is also the same thing that makes me feel like total crap later on. *sigh*