the words that lead to my obsession with food...

as-salaam aleikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

reading the "muslimah on a diet" blog, and how the sister wrote her story, I thought I should do so also to let it all out in the open.

"Look, TheHungryMuslimah (me) has a big butt", my step-father said as he was walking behind me with my mother.

I thought to myself "what? I have a big butt? how embarassing!!" and became very self-conscious about my butt being big. I was 13 years old, in junior high school.

and then it seemed I was constantly being told/reminded about how big I was from my step-family. I was told I should control my eating so that I could lose some weight. I remember being at Denny's one evening and my uncle told the waiter not to give me any butter because I need to lose weight. the waiter actually brought my dish and then a small dish of butter--I can't remember what he told me as he gave me the butter, but it was something nice.

I believed I needed to lose weight from what my family were telling me so I started thinking I need to skip meals and such.... but for some reason I became so obsessed with food I ate and ate and ate. I couldn't skip a meal because when I tried I couldn't stop thinking about food.

and with the eating I gained weight. and with each pound I gained the more I was told I was getting fatter and needed to diet. I was comfort eating....yet at the end of the meal I would tell myself "I have to start dieting"--but I kept comfort eating all the way through junior high and high school... I never joined any sport teams even though I was a fast sprint runner and I was good at volleyball--why? because I was way too embarrassed to wear the uniforms because I was too fat!!

I thought I was HUGE, that I was disgustingly fat--yet I was getting hit on by guys in junior high adn high school. each time a guy would hit on me I would seriously think they were joking because they could not possibly want to go out with someone fat like me. my senior yearbook photo is just a photo taken of me by my family at home. I was too embarrassed to get a professional photo taken.

I kept emotionally eating into college. Then one day when I was around 21 years old my cousin and I were looking through old photos of mine. I came across a photo of when I was 13 years old and in junior high school. I had the shock of my life.

I was THIN!!

I remembered the pants in the picture were size medium. I was thin!!! I didn't need to lose ANY weight at all! I didn't have a big butt!

why was my family so adamant with me back then that I was big and needed to lose weight??? my step-family is Japanese-American--all of my step-cousins who were girls except for one, were extremely petit and tiny. they wore size xs. they probably weighed no more than 105lbs. the one step-cousin who wasn't tiny like them was half-Japanese, half caucasian,--like me (though I also have some Nnative American blood in me). I supposed size medium to them is fat!!! unbelievable!!

I was sooo angry and then after going through the anger I realized I am not going to let them affect me anymore and over the next months and months, with dieting healthily and exercising, I became thin again. I had beaten the fat!!

or so I thought.

when I was losing weight I was going to college part-time and working part-time and I had a lot of free time so that was when I spent the free-time dieting and working out. sometimes I worked out up to 3 hours a day.

then life happened and I became extremely busy and couldn't do all the working out I used to. with the stress the emotional eating came right back immediately. I slowly stopped working out. and gained everything back pluse more.

over the years I have lost some weight and then gained it back after losing motivation. this yo-yo dieting is dangerous for me and I need to change this for good, inshallah!

I now know I cannot "beat" this fat--I will always have to stay on top of it. this emotional eating will be something I will most likely have to fight all my life.