Message Replying To

From Spacemonkey, Age 15

Ht. 5'5", Start: 11 st 7, Today: 11 st 6, Goal: 10 st 0 - Being overweight sucks. I hate having such low self-esteem and being ashamed of what I look like. It makes a massive impact on your life and you feel absolutely hideous when around other people. I've had really bad experiences at school with bullying (even before I was overweight), my parents had an bad marriage and my little sister had cancer three times. It all started around the same time when I was 10/11 years old. I felt really lonely and isolated and depressed because I was scared my sister was going to die, I didn't see her or my parents for six whole weeks at one point and I was being tormented when I went to school. There was no escape for me so I would eat to distract myself and try and make myself feel less empty inside. Now, I've learnt to stop binging and I barely eat now. It's not healthy, but because I don't do much exercise (mostly out of embarrassment because I'm scared people will judge/mock me for being 'the fat kid' in the gym) I don't lose weight. I'm sick of stepping on the scales and thinking that the number is just going to keep going up and I'm doomed to be overweight. I avoid mirrors too, and acting like this isn't right. However, after struggling for so long, I've finally grown the balls to do something about my weight. I live two miles from my school so I'm going to walk there and back everyday (Believe it or not, I used to and lost 8 pounds), try and go cycling like I used to, and walk my dogs whenever I have time. I've never been a very confident person, but with age, my self-esteem has got better, so I'm determined to do something this time. I'm going to take matters into my own hands and get myself out of this mess because if other people can do it, why can't I?