I've been overweight my entire life, with my parents putting me on diets from the time I was five on. I went through a long period of self hatred which turned into anorexia in my teens which then turned into obsessive eating. I was ridiculed due to my weight by everyone, including my parents, who often embarrassed me in front of friends and other family members, which prompted even more cruel teasing from my siblings. At 5'2, I hit 196 and would alternate a dangerous eating pattern of starving myself and then eating everything in sight. It became a horrible game of self-punishment. At 20, I got married. In 2006 we had our first child, where my weight topped out at 235; the following year, my second daughter was born but I managed to only get up to 215. I never got lower than 186 and often drifted closer to 196 for the next couple of years. In 2009, while my husband was in Korea, I decided to join Nutrisystem in a last ditch effort to lose weight. I went from 196 to 136 in a little over a year. I'm still struggling with emotional eating and portion control after all this time, but I have at least maintained my weight, always turning back to healthy ways of eating after an episode. I'm looking forward to continuing weight loss success by using this as yet another tool to keep me accountable for my eating habits in an effort to control them even at my worst times.