What it was like:

My top weight was 450 lbs approximately. I say approximately because the scale I was using topped out at 420. Quite frankly I killed the scale. I was wearing a 5X in men’s clothing. I use the term clothing loosely. Think drapery rather than clothing. I didn’t get on the scale until I wanted to lose weight so it is very likely that I weighed even more. I did not weigh myself for decades unless a doctor demanded it. Most doctors scales didn’t go that high however.

My first bought with weight was not morbid obesity however, it was with anorexia. I was a healthy girl and came from a family of big eaters, who were all big! So I was chunky or husky, big boned or “healthy” depending on how you looked at it. I wasn’t obese though. But I developed early. I was 10 years old and nearly 6’ tall. I matured early, probably because I was slightly overweight. Most children who are overweight do mature early because certain hormones are triggered. So I was ten years old, tall, had boobs and hips, and looked like a woman rather than a preteen child. Looking back at pictures I looked like a supermodel!! But to the other 60lb 4’ tall girls I was FAT! I decided to go on a diet! I thought if 1,200 calories a day would help me lose 2 lbs a week, then 100 calories a day would make me skinny in weeks! It seemed like simple math to me. I subsisted on less than 100 calories a day for nearly a year. I was so weak at the end I could barely walk. I remember being on the beach when it was over 100 degrees. The hot sun pounded down on me, and I was wrapped up in all the beach blankets freezing to death. My family was watching me slowly die but didn’t know what to do. This was before the average person knew what anorexia was and no one knew what to do about it anyway. My father had the cure…he forced me to eat. He literally shoved the food down my throat. I remember making a decision then; I would control the food that went in my mouth…no matter what. My obesity started at that moment.
I ate and ate and ate. I did anything I had to in order to support my habit. I worked part-time jobs. I stole money from family and strangers. I became a master at running various scams at school, against shopkeepers, anything to get money for food. I was a size 16 in Jr. High. Then a size 18 & then a size 20 in High School. That was not even a hint of what was to come.