My Sizes Get a Graph.

I don’t necessarily remember my weight at every age but I can remember the sizes of the clothes that I wore. As such, I decided to graph my sizing over time - my adult years - in order to see where I have grown and shrunk to visualize my journey with weight thus far. Below is that graph (sorry about the smallish size, I couldn't get it any bigger with my minimal blogging skills). There are some letters by certain periods of growth and reduction that have explanation below the chart.

A – I left high school at a size 14 but gained a little more than the freshman 15 lbs. in my first year of college. In my defense, I went to a private school with really good cafeteria food.

B – What started out as me focusing on weight loss became a cycle of working out and fasting that consisted mostly of diet pills and liquor. Added to this was a period of binging and purging that was very effective for weight loss but not so good for me. I was a size 4 for about 2 seconds in which I wore a bikini at my sorority’s beach formal (in the dark after everyone was too blitzed to notice) then quickly started gaining back weight.

C – I, of course, gained all the weight back plus more when I stopped throwing up and started eating again. Looking back at this time I was happy and healthy (and really drunk as it was my senior year in college). I actually give credit to my drinking and partying life style (of the time) for helping me get past my prior bulimic phase as it takes eating real food to drink like a champion. I also stopped working out during this time period which, in retrospect, was a very bad idea.

D – I stopped drinking and partying to start on my Master’s degree and gained weight while hunkering down with the books and projects. I also gained weight during my first real career type job where I learned that being an adult wasn’t as much fun as everyone had hoped for.

E – I’d love to say I took initiative and went on a diet, but this time marks when my father was sick and passed away. I was too drugged with antidepressants, migraine medicines, and tranquilizers to eat so I lost weight.

F – This was my latest jump in weight and corresponds to my decision to get banded. This was also my highest size (26) at 283 lbs.

G – Starting out at 31, which I will turn in a few days, I am a size 24 and hoping to start a new trend with a negative slope (for the math lovers - I am a statistics nerd by the way).  I don't want to go dratsically down in sizes as I did when I was unhealthy but I do hope to return at leat to a size 14 (my 18 year old level).