Micaela always used food to help her escape her problems - until she set out to understand herself.
Micaela's Story
"I used food to deal with my problems."
When I was five years old, my mom was diagnosed with lupus. It was a really fearful time for me, and I found a way to numb it out with food. Because I was really athletic in high school, my weight wasn't as big of an issue, but I definitely fluctuated between dieting and eating really badly. When I went to college, my diet got a lot worse because I could eat whatever I wanted - I wasn't living with my mom anymore.
By the time I graduated from college, I was about 40 pounds overweight. I was partying heavily, smoking heavily and eating really unhealthily. I couldn't even run two city blocks at the age of 23. I was unhealthy and was using unhealthy behaviors to avoid dealing with my feelings. At that point, I realized I was I was very depressed.
"It wasn't until I was able to address being depressed that I was able to address my eating."
I knew that before I could make external changes, I'd first have to do some internal soul searching, and that could take a while. I stopped drinking, then stopped smoking a year later. Quitting smoking actually caused me to gain even more weight. Finally, in May 2006, I was sitting at my computer when I experienced a moment of change. I had spent so long going through periods where I would just eat everything in sight. I told myself, "Micaela, you either need to go away to rehab or commit yourself to getting healthy 100 percent."
I joined Weight Watchers, like I had many times before, but this time I really wanted it. I knew it wasn't going to happen overnight, that it would take some time, just like dealing with the depression and quitting smoking had. My goal wasn't looking good in a bikini, winning a guy or shutting my mother up - it was getting the mental clarity I had lost through my cycle of eating.
"I was ready to be accountable and really honest with myself."
It helped to have a serious boyfriend at the time, because I thought he was sick and tired of hearing me talk about losing weight, but never doing it. I started to realize how I must sound to the people around me. I started working on my relationship with my mom, and realized that she had issues surrounding food - and that a lot of women do.
Accountability became a huge part of this. I couldn't talk to my friends about being healthy, then order a cheeseburger and fries. I didn't want to be a hypocrite. I started writing down what I planned on eating every day, and then I wrote down what I actually ate. I learned how to work out the right way, and stuck to a schedule.
"You don't just snap your fingers and lose weight. It's a lifestyle change."
Sometimes I'm afraid that I'll wake up and be the same person that I was 50 pounds ago. Because it's so challenging, there's this fear that I'm going to get sick of doing it and quit. But then I realize that the reason I stick to it is that I feel better. I sleep better. I have more energy than ever. And I feel good about myself. That's my motivation to keep making healthy choices for the rest of my life.
