Twenty-nine and now a single mother of four very young children was my new life.  I had suffered heart break of the worst kind and EVERYTHING I thought I knew, was now changed.  
I had my family, my children and friends to support me and love me, but after many years of merging my identity with my husbands, I was no longer with him.  
I had to look at my life and make some hard changes.  I knew I HAD to get fit.  I knew I wanted to get married again, and that would require me to be thin and attractive.  
Remember, in my childhood days, I equated fit and thin with likeable???  Well, that stuck with me and all of a sudden, I WANTED to be likeable.  I wanted to find a new husband.  I wanted to stop feeling my pain.  
I turned back to something that worked before and that was exercise.  I spent hours and hours exercising and getting fit.  
It really wasn't long before the men took notice and it made me even more driven to be thinner.  
I stopped eating and dropped over 100 pounds in well under a years time.  
I had lots of attention, dates and friends and I was loving life for the first time in years.  
My brain never thought I was dealing with thinking errors.  
I was never going back and thats what I truly believed! 

Three week after I high school graduation, I became a bride.  I was a mere 17 years old, but I believed I could take on the world and I was not about to allow anyone to tell me anything different. 

I moved to Colorado, far from home, and became an Army wife.  Two weeks after moving, I had my first taste of being a military spouse.  My new husband, and only person I knew in my city left for a month.  This was back in the days of no cell phones or internet, and let me tell you; for the first time in many years, I felt truly alone.

Except.....There was one thing I knew and it knew me too.  
It was proven to bring me feelings of comfort and love and it never let me down!  
Then and there, I became truly addicted to food!  I replaced my relationships when my husband was gone, for donuts, cheeseburgers and fries. 
 I ate oreos by the package, fried chicken by the pound and ice cream by the quarts.  
I had no boundaries.  
No one was around and I could binge every day, all day.  
I no longer ran or worked out, and it didn't take long to pack on the pounds.  

To be exact, I gained around 70 pounds in about 6 months.  I didn't see this as destructive behavior though.  I had a steady companion that never left me, and I was not about to let it go away.  

To make matters worse, my husband loved fast food, junk food and everything that is unhealthy and processed.  Those foods just made my addiction worse and I gorged when I was alone, which was often.  

None of my clothes fit, I stopped doing my hair, showering and wearing makeup.  
I looked and felt awful and put myself in a tiny cocoon and isolated myself from everything and everyone.  

Depression set in and it was easy to blame the weight gain on depression. 
However; looking back, depression was merely a side effect of my diet and weight gain.  I was no longer myself, had no friends, hobbies or interests.  
I did not want to be seen because of my belief that being fat made me unlikeable. I belived having babies would make it all better and so I began my family. 
The military life got harder and harder and raising 2 kids who were active and close in age would prove to be very stressful.  When they napped or slept at night, I would pull out my special food and gorge....I would eat so much I would be sick, but the food made it all better.  
Besides, food was always around, even when my husband wasn't.  

There were times I would gain control and lose weight, but I could never truly take hold and make a connection that would be permanant.  
My struggle continued through many moves, friends, deployments and more pregnancies that would bring my child count to a total of four.  
Then one day, EVERYTHING changed......