It's a touchy subject. Most of my life I was a good, healthy weight. I normally wore size small. I'm writing this to show how easy it is to gain weight and how possible it is to lose weight.
About 4 years ago I had gained some weight. I was working at a Chinese Restaurant that served us a free meal each shift. I think you can see where this is going. I did gain about 10 pounds. I was wearing the same clothes, but they fit tightly. It was the first time I had ever shown some weight. I was starting to shop size medium shirt and size 10 pants.
About a year later, I had gained a couple more pounds. It put me over the edge, needing to wear a size large shirt and size 12 pants. I knew I was gaining because out how my clothes were fitting, but I didn't think I looked overweight... yet. This is 2011. I was about 145 lbs.
Another year after that, 2012, I was at my heaviest. I gained weight rapidly. Over about 2-3 months (this is not well documented, because I was in denial and avoided keeping records,) I went from around 150 lbs to 175 lbs. Something happened that was beyond my control. I figured it was a combination of being over stressed (I just suffered the most stressful event of my life,) over eating, and resting too much. I also noticed I went from feeling somewhat tired all the time to extremely tired all the time. I didn't want to do anything. I also avoided photos, and I conveniently can't seem to find the photos I knew I was in at this point in time. I'm worried I actually deleted them, which is unfortunate because I visited some awesome places in New England at that time. I can't find those photos either. 
I tried doing something called a Rotary Diversified Diet early that year. I won't explain because I don't recommend doing it. Long story short, it helped me lose about 15 pounds in 2 months, but it was so terribly demanding and tedious that it was nearly impossible to follow accurately at times. It also left me hungry, which isn't right. It helped at the time, but it was not a long-term solution. So this is what I looked like by Christmas of 2012. Around 160 lbs.
I did try doing another round of the diet in 2013. It helped again, a little bit. I managed to get down to 150 lbs on my own. I couldn't keep the diet up, though. I was getting too tired to care, and the diet was a ton of work. Eating was the easy part, managing what I was allowed to eat and when was too much. Despite the weight loss, I was feeling worse and worse. I had a few weeks on the diet where I felt more energy and was feeling pretty good, but that didn't last. I was feeling sick all the time, and this is when I decided to start seeing doctors, thinking I might have an auto-immune disease or
thyroid issue.
By November of 2013, I found myself seeing a my Naturopathic Doctor, who put me on a strict diet, supplements, and an exercise program. This photo was taken about 4 months into the diet. It was my first time fitting into a size small shirt again! I was down to size 8 pants too!
It's been almost exactly a year with my doctor and on the diet he put me on. What's most important is that I'm feeling a lot better and my body is working a lot better, but the weight loss also feels great. I don't, for whatever reason, have a recent photo of me that shows my current weight. All the photos I've been in recently hardly show my body. I'll remedy this soon, and when I do get a good photo taken I'll edit this post and include it. I am, however, at 130 lbs, wearing size XS - Small shirts (depending on the brand,) and size 6 pants. I've been at this weight for a while now and I haven't managed to lose any weight in the past few months. I'm not complaining - I no longer look overweight!
Lately I've been seeing lots of posts about how many people lost weight by cutting all grains from their diet. This makes me so happy. As you know, I've also been totally grain-free all year. I've also been totally sugar-free all year (no fruit, no honey, no agave - no sweeteners or sugars.) I have no desire whatsoever to ever go back to consuming grains, and I honestly have no interest in the taste of sugar either. I'm fairly certain that a big part of my weight loss was going grain-free and sugar-free. :)
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