Today I have decided to put out there the truth about what I have experienced in the past and present being morbidly obese.  I was always a very heavy child.  I do not put this mildly!  I was 150 pounds by the age of 5 years old, by 12 over 200 pounds and by the time I hit high school 300 pounds.  I tried to live as normal as a life as possible growing up.  I played sports, went to amusement parks, and had good friends had crushes on cute boys and went roller skating at least twice a week.  My earliest memory of any thing wrong with myself was in kindergarten.  Before that I did not have a lot of contact with other children and the adults in my life did not say much about being overweight.  I was an only child, with no neighbors and no cousins near my age.  So I tended to spend a lot of time with adults and my animals.  Oh yeah and eating.  My parents owned a business that I had access to a lot of food at any time, so there really was no monitoring of what I ate.  That first memory that I am thinking of is when a fire truck came to my school and all of the children stood in line to be lifted up into the fire truck to see what it was like inside.  For some reason though they would not lift me up.  This baffled me and upset me greatly.  I now understand why.  I was just to big for any one to lift up.  I really did quite a job of fooling my parents that all was well at school.  I did not want them to find out my secret that others bullied and made fun of me at any chance they could.  Another early memory at that age is going to Sea Word and wanting to go on the kids play stuff and not being aloud because they said I was over the weight limit.  This seemed to be a popular theme in my young years.  I can remember not fitting into the desks at school.  I was always the last to be picked for sports and as for that matter anything.  Yes what they say is true, children can be very mean!  I think it was at this point that I realized that food was my best friend.  When I would come home from school and feel badly about myself I would head straight to the food.  I know a lot of people tend to thing that obese people are dirty, ugly, or lazy people, however I did not fall into that category.  I was high energy for being my size.  I wanted so much to fit in.  How does one fit in when you are obese?  I guess I tried my best and I don't have any hard feelings toward those people now.  I just think if they were more informed they may find that there are other things going on.  Luckily for me I could really hit a soft ball and so I was on a league for many years.  I used to joke that I had to hit a long ball so I could make it around the bases. They used me to clean up.  As I grew older I was always the girl who would fix up my friends with the guys.  I knew better than to expect anything else, because it was made quite clear to me that I was quite the beast.  I can remember in high school being kicked, punched, spit on you name it for being the way I looked.  If I could do things over you bet I would watch my food intake.  When I got out of school I moved quite far away to attend college.  I didn't want to face the people who had such fun tormenting me.  This I think is about the time that I truly started to become the person I am today.  Mind you all threw these growing up years I tried and tried to diet, exercise etc.  I did make a lot of friends at college and so my confidence started to go up, however the weight still did not come down.  Now I would just lean on food for stress and it would feel great doing it and in the moment, however the guilt I felt afterward can not be explained.  I had been told by many people that I was pretty but you need to lose weight.  At this time plus size modeling came into the scene.  I decided I was going to try out.  I did a pageant and had good luck, so I decided I was going to be the one who stood up for the plus size people that were being ridiculed.  I moved to NYC and followed my dreams.  I have to say it was a bit odd being over weight there, because people are always moving and active and walking.  At this time I was back under the 300 pound mark.  I learned a lot there and realized that I wanted to get into photography and makeup artistry.  I think I love this field because I can make anyone feel good about themselves.  I remember doing a photo shoot with a little girl with one eye and she was so happy that her pictures turned out great.  That's the kind of feeling I love.  Helping others.  I want to note here that if I had not gone threw the things I had I don't think I would be as opened minded as I am today.  I really believe God has a plan for all of us.  I knew the weight problem would be detrimental to my health, but I also kept thinking I have time.  I broke my leg in my 20's and it was so difficult to do anything with crutches because of my weight.  I could not walk long distance, so I had to be wheeled in a wheelchair.  I felt awful, because even the wheelchair was to small for my ever growing size. I have had all sort of weird things happen to me because of this size problem.  People get mad because I may over lap my seat.  So I always make sure to have a thin person with me to sit next to me so that no one will complain.  I go to the gym and the scale doesn't go up high enough. I stopped going to the mall years ago because I got tired of the stares.  I love to go in the water to swim, but when I do I dash quickly so hopefully no one will see me and be offended by what they see.  At restaurants chairs do not always fit, and I feel as though I am being judged by what I select. I have not been able to go into a regular store in years to pick out clothes.  There are only two stores in this area that can fit my size.  I started to grow more reclusive over a few of the past years.  I am very blessed though to have many many good friends and family that back what ever I choose to do.  I know now that they only want what is best for my health.  After my heart attack at 40 years old I started to get to the point that I thought, well this is it.  It's over for me.  I felt like that for quite some time.  They say you have to hit rock bottom to come back up, well I was at the bottom!  I have a very bad back problem that I am sure is made much worse by my weight.  I started not being able to do things.  I have a great love of animals and am quite active with my three dogs (I should say as active as someone who is morbidly obese with a bad back can be).  That to was now being taken away from me.  Then I thought one day.  Who will take care of my animals if I let this go further, who will take care of my aging parents, and for that matter who will take care of me?  I started to think maybe I should start making out what I would like for the paper to say at my time of death.  I made my friends and family promise they would not take my dogs to a shelter but find someone that would take them.  Okay that's it!  Even if this endeavor takes my life at least I died trying and was not a quitter.  I once before had a major weight loss in my late twenty's.  If I could do it then I can do it now.  All things are possible for those who believe! xoxo