By Stacy

Part of my current goal to get to and maintain a healthy size is figuring out how I got here in the first place.  Yeah sure, baby weight, I DID have two babies (read: thorough core muscle obliterating pregnancies) in the small matter of 25 months.

I did lose all of the fifty plus pounds after my son was born, and I achieved what was without a doubt, the best fitness and MILF-status bod of my entire life.  The second pregnancy was only a thirty-to-a-T pound weight gain and about half of it came off without effort in the first few postpartum weeks. Left with less than ten pounds to jiggle off on the treadmill, I got the biggest curve-ball of my life thrown directly at my face; my son was diagnosed with Autism and I had a three week old newborn.

Stress eat much?  Here’s a hot doughnut for that hole in your heart.

The hours of the next few weeks and months of my life folded into each other like soggy oatmeal.  I was reading everything I could, researching therapy methods, calling doctors and finding therapist and schools, spending hours in the pediatric unit so my two year old could have an MRI and an EEG, following up on results and trying to implement a household full of new techniques for everything from tooth-brushing and hand-washing to just-say-JUICE-dammit, Ju-Ju-Juuuice.  I was awake at least twice a night for the baby, and possibly just as much for my two year old.  I was awake all day and almost all night.  Energy was a joke.  Caffeine was my crack.  I leaked tears and breastmilk until I couldn’t tell which was which.  Life was hard and I was lonely and scared and very much alone.

I found myself in the kitchen spooning peanut butter down my throat, eating half the box of DrumSticks the same night I brought them home and hoarding Easter candy like it was going out of style.  I ate after each of the baby’s feedings, telling myself I was hungry because breastfeeding was depleating me of calories.  Hah! I walked directly to the kitchen (do not pass GO, do not collect…) after my son had tantrums or night wakings because I needed energy, strength and nonjudgmental love.

Friends have a way of disappearing when something like this strikes.  People don’t know what to say or how to act so they … don’t.  But I found a friend in almond butter!  I found a friend in a loaf or three of homemade zucchini bread.

Finding myself in this emptiness and emotional void, exhausted, and worn down in every possible way you can imagine, I started eating.  (I wish I was one of those people who LOSSES their appetite with stress, but, … NO.)  I felt empty so I ate.  Food felt warm and soothing and comforting.  The feeling of being full in the stomach gave me something else to think about other than my feelings of a bleak reality.  But that fleeting feeling was sucked away like a delicate shell in a rough surf and replaced by self loathing sadness.  So of course, I ate some more!

I felt so empty inside that I was afraid to feel the actual emptiness of hunger.  And ho, boy! Did I ever make sure that I never felt hungry.

So here I am, twenty five pounds to lose and ready to take the kettlebell by the handle and get myself to a healthier place.

As for the emotional side of things … I need to write more and I need to talk more.  I’m a special needs mother and I need to look into forming a better circle of support, seeing a therapist and the hardest one, forgiving myself for getting fat and liking myself regardless of a few extra inches here and there.  Size 14 or Size 6, I am the same person.