Please don’t leave any negative comments. I know how fat people are viewed and I know so many people just blame it on laziness but it’s much more complicated than that. If you hate fat people or find them revolting, find a different post to read.

I am 20 years old. I’ve been fat all my life and I have never known what it’s like to be at the very least comfortable in my body and I definitely don’t know what it’s like to love my body. It’s become a lot harder since recently I have gained a lot of weight and I am now at my heaviest: around 280 pounds. I went through a short period of becoming more comfortable with myself but that body positivity progress stopped when I started gaining more weight.

I try to be body positive. I try to convince myself to love my body. But it is so hard, it’s impossible really, to love myself when clothes don’t fit me anymore. It’s impossible to love myself when I struggle for breath bending over and tying my shoes. It’s impossible when I know that when people see me, they only see me as a disgusting person. I see other fat people, my size and larger, and I can see their beauty, but I see zero beauty in myself. Something that I struggle with immensely is clothes. I love fashion and I long to wear certain things, but I just can’t. I only have one pair of jeans now and they look atrocious and are so ill-fitting. I’ve tried on so many jeans and tops, wishing and hoping for them to just fit and look good but they never do and it hurts so much. Going through each week wearing the same jeans, the same four shirts: it is so embarrassing and it has made my tiny bit of confidence disappear.

Recently I’ve discovered how important diet is (when I talk about ‘diet’ I’m not talking about fad diets or anything like that: I’m just talking about what a person eats in general; their typical diet). Food obviously is important but it really does affect everything about us. I want to eat healthy. I want to truly nourish my body with the foods I eat. I want to eat a mainly plant-based diet (not vegan or vegetarian, I just want to get most of my nutrients from plant-based sources). But a difficulty I have is that with my living situation — I’m not able to freshly prepare all my meals. Plus I have a really picky eater of a sister so with those two things combined it leads me to eat unhealthily. I also am addicted to coffee with tons of sugar and cream in it. I’m working on it but coffee is really one of the only things that makes me happy… (I do drink a lot of water though — I only drink water and coffee for the most part). I also need to completely quit consuming added sugars. Sugar is in everything though!

fyi: I may have PCOS & I definitely have hormonal problems that make it difficult to lose weight — so that really doesn’t help.

I simply just want to lose weight. Really, all my life that has been my biggest goal. I’m tired of hating myself. It scary though because if I hate myself now, I’ll hate myself at any size. But I just can’t love myself!! It is so frustrating and it’s just an endless cycle. I’m so done. So many times I wonder “why wasn’t I just born skinny? why do I have to be fat?” In this world fat is the worst thing you can be and I really feel that and it hurts.

Has anyone been in a similar situation as me and managed to lose weight? Please let me know. Does anyone have advice for eating healthy when you can’t cook actual fresh & healthy meals?