My body weight has consumed me my entire life.

I can tell you my birth weight, my weight in high school, my ready-to-deliver-a-baby weight, and everything in the 40-odd years since.

I’ve obsessed since childhood. Having been born with a faulty thyroid gland that decided to give up the ghost before I was five-years-old, I’ve struggled with food and self-image and teasing and all the obnoxious things that go along with not fitting the American Stereotype.

Most women probably can relate to this body-image struggle, the whole not-good-enough culture we live in.

I want to be healthy. Unfortunately, this body is made up of a million little choices, both bad and good. Coping with anxiety and depression, with a difficult childhood and a difficult marriage left their mark on me. My grandma, my favorite adult in my childhood, loved us and fed us Creamy-Goodness: cream gravy, butter and peanut butter toast, delicate butter cookies, pies.

She was love, so her foods meant love to me.

This body is made of a million little choices, both bad and good.

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I’ve long been a fan of the endorphin hit from chocolate. And dark chocolate is a health food, so i feel it’s my personal duty to have a square or two daily.

But any humor aside, it sucks to feel like food holds as much, well, WEIGHT as it does in my life. I’ve been doing Noom since the first of the year, and while I’ve got a long way to go, the program has made inroads in changing how I look at food. I’m losing the obsession, which is practically a miracle. (And yes, this IS an endorsement!)

I say bad things to myself that i would never say to a friend, calling myself weak. But am I? Certainly a weak person doesn’t endure decades of therapy! One must be strong to face one’s demons.

I call myself useless. But am I? Or have I contributed to life in the raising of my children, in the loving and nurturing of foster babies? In the encouragement of friends?

I’ve managed to see myself through the single lens of my body size, as if that erases every other good thing about me. How pointless is that?

The bring your own beverage conversation: What are three valuable things about you not related to your weight or whatever it is you struggle with? I’ll go first: I’m deep, I’m funny, I’m a nurturer. Your turn!