Weight Loss Essays

Especially when the person doing the judging is far from perfect herself.Feeding My Emotions Blogger Audrey Holden (Iam Barking Mad.com), 41, Saratoga Springs, NY I was sitting against the plush black leather of the limousine as it carried me away from the grave of my 2-year-old son, Joshua, who had been killed days earlier after being struck by a pickup truck. With bitter tears running down my cheeks, I closed my eyes and pictured the platters of roast beef, creamy mashed potatoes and assorted pastries that my friends had lovingly set out at the wake.

While some manage to drop the pounds with extra trips to the gym or by cutting back on junk food, for others, their problem runs much deeper than bad habits alone.

Cammy Chapel got bigger as her self-confidence got weaker; Audrey Holden found comfort in food after her son's tragic death and Hollie Johnson grew up in a household of overeaters.

But whatever the underlying issue, these three women learned to deal with the underlying reasons they gained the weight so they could undertake the difficult journey of losing it. In My Shoes Blogger Cammy Chapel (Tippy Toe Diet.com), 52, Memphis, TN "We don't have anything that will fit you here.

Your sizes are somewhere else." It's been 20 years and those words—spoken loudly and rudely by a clerk in a high-end department store—still sting.

But I also wanted others to see the strong, capable person I really was.

Now I've lost those 100 pounds and kept them off for over a year.

Never mind that I was looking for something for a friend.

I hadn't even asked for help; she just saw me and decided I had no business shopping there.

Believe me, I wanted nothing more than to be somewhere, anywhere else at that moment to escape the shame and embarrassment as other shoppers turned to look at me, the woman who was too large for that department.

Comments like that—not to mention muffled snickering and offensive gestures—are pretty typical when you're 100 pounds overweight.