Inside Bell's Brain

I've struggled with my weight my entire life.  Well, since around fourth or fifth grade we'll say.  About the time that I began steroids for my asthma.  Which made me gain weight.  And then I learned to self-medicate the discouragement I felt for being "fat" with more food.  And then kids are bullies, so then I ate more food to soothe those wounds...  And then I lost the weight in high school.  And then there was mono my freshman year and I ballooned up again.  And then I lost the weight again in college.  And then there was my divorce and working three jobs while I was in grad school.  And then I lost weight yet again, even became a certified fitness instructor... and then this depression happened.  To be honest, I still have to fight the temptation to self-medicate using food. As a society, we have certain assumptions about people we judge as overweight.  People tend to assume they eat all day wit...

Dear Erika, Here we go again. You’ve fallen off the fasting wagon... again. And let’s face it... you used to be thick, but still fit... but that ship may have sailed. Far far away. You’ve long fallen off the fitness wagon too.  Something’s got to give though because you’re unhappy with who you are and who you’ve become. Now, granted, you’ve been through some seriously tough and unfair crap these past few years. You’ve realized there were so many people who should’ve loved you better along the way than they did. And you know that logically, but you forget to remember it in your heart sometimes. One of those people... is you. You deserved to give yourself so much more compassion and grace than you did, still do.  But you’ve still got to get it together. It won’t happen over night but if you have to reread this letter every day until it clicks, then DO IT. You’re unhappy with your current vessel. And you’re 34 now, so it may have limitations that it didn’t have before, but you’re...