I NEVER EVER EVER THOUGHT

I would go on a vacation like I just did.For many years I had given up on myself and sold myself short. To be honest, this is the first real relationship I have ever had that was even remotely healthy. I have had men in my life, but they were usually half relationships that I worked at the other person did not. Like with my daughter's father.Thus I turned into a single mom at 30. And became a huge, fat single mom. All the pain, loneliness, etc I felt showed itself to the world as FAT. I have always had weight issues and have yo yo dieted my whole life, since age 15, when I went on my first DIET.I am not stupid enough to not think I could gain weight again. That is one lesson I learned.But, as a fat, single mom in my 30s I did not do much more than fantasized about finding the right guy and having the kind of life I deserved and most of the time I didn't feel I deserved it. I felt I was meant to suffer for my bad choices.I had a moment where I kind of woke up from this denial when my daughter was in 3rd grade. Part of my denial was convincing myself that I was actually fit, even though I was kind of fat. This was due to the mad fitness craze I experienced in college, when I gave up drugs and alchohol for running and eating healthy. I did get to a moderately good weight and I was healthy, but really was still fat. Fatter than I am now. Anyway at age 38, I believed I was fit, for some reason because of my semi-athletic past. I even talked about this openly to people who must have thought I was nuts. Or in HUGE DENIAl. Which I was.I decided to take my daughter hiking at a local state park. When we got there I chose the hardest, expert trail, to climb, because I was fit after all.I almost died. Literally. I climbed this trail, but had to stop every two steps. My heart pounded and I was dizzy and felt nauseated. I could have had a heart attack right there in front of my 8 year old daughter.This did wake me up somewhat and I did start exercising but did not really change my eating habits. I did become a fitter fat person. Finally about four years later I joined Ediets and started losing. I don't know how much I lost the first year. I would not weight myself and had not weighed myself in about 12 years. I put in fake numbers for the weigh in. I started out at a size 24 and about a year later, at size 12-14, I weighed in. I thought I weighed about 175.I weighed 208. That was a kick in the butt. How much did I weight when I started? Who knows? 270? Maybe. Maybe more.To make a long boring story short, I lost more, gained, and lost and gained again and now I am at the losing end and at the point where I normally start avoiding the scale for about six months and then find I gained 40 pounds. Denial and yo yo dieting.I am a professional.My self-esteem has taken years to get to where it is.I never thought I would go on a dream vacation with the greatest guy in the world, my John. If John and I broke up, I would never date again, because I know I would never find someone who measures up. Because I did date, in my early 40s before I met him. A lot. I dated a lot of asswipes and had semi-relationships with men who were not worth 2 cents.Because that was all I felt I deserved. I think a lot of people don't believe I deserve him, like my mother and sister. My mom thinks we will break up and I will screw it up, because I had a life of being a total loser. She has defined me as a loser and she can't really accept I changed. That is why she screams at me to not lose more weight. It is intimidating to her. My sister, who weighs 300 pounds and is a nice person, blurted out at xmas that I didn't deserve the nice jewelry that John gave me. That is her denial. She thinks I am a BITCH and that she is nicer and worthier of a great guy even though she HUGE, and I do love her, but she is jealous. And I have lived the denial she is in. If only xyz guy KNEW how nice and wonderful I am, he could overlook the fact that I am HUGE and a SLOB. I lived that denial for years.But I made a lot of changes and it has taken a long time. Am I at where I want to be yet? No. Do I believe I can get there? Yup. Will I get there? Yup. I am pretty sure of that most of the time.I am at a dangerous point right now where I could get complacent and stay off the scale, but I can't do that this time. I have to make myself do the things I don't want to do. I have to believe I deserve this and that I have what I have because of actions I took. I changed. I can get even better and can have nice vacations and a good guy. I can.