FAT

   When I left home I was not skinny but I was definitely comfortable in my weight and size.  Having been an active kid and teen I was always in some kind of sport or involved in some sort of physical activity. I never worried that I would get fat, or that I looked fat.  Fat never entered my mind. Then I went away to college.  I did not have a typical college experience.  Since I came from a small town, the city and the various cultures kind of overwhelmed me. I was spending most of my time in my dorm and on the phone comparing notes with my other friends who had gone away to college.  Pretty soon, within 6  weeks in fact I had gained a couple of sizes. I was beginning to get uncomfortable and self conscious about my weight....Thus began the ride on the "Mammoth rollercoaster: DEIT-ALL OR BUST!" I was pretty comfortable with my pretty average size and I realized when I wasn't average anymore that I didn't like being "over average" When I went home for Christmas and my mom said "honey you are getting a little bit bigger I notice" I was devastated! My own mother had called me FAT! Already I had been contemplating the "D" word...the more I considered it the more I ate and less I moved.  So after the break and school was back in session I enrolled into a weight training & running class. I took the "fat" by the horns and got on some kind of grapefruit diet.  Ugh! I hated it.  Eating foods that were foreign to me and foods that were  bland. By the end of the quarter I had dropped 20 lbs.  My body  was smaller than even in high school, I loved the results.  So then when I reached my goal I continued running and dropped the grapefruit diet! relief. I was adjusting to my independence, my new life and body, things were getting easier.  I was still lonely and still in a bit of culture shock but the numbness was either leaving or I was dealing with it better. When that first year of college ended I was still thin while exercising. 
 That was the result of that very first diet I tried.  A success I would say, but perhaps in other areas it wasn't.....