So, who didn't watch the Oprah "I've fallen off the weight loss ship" episode? No really, you know you did. At first, when she was describing that no matter how much money or power one has....it is nothing if you are fat. I kind of felt funny. You are telling me that my self-worth is based purely on how I look? But, as she went deeper she realized that the issue was that she didn't love her.

Anyway, Bob Greene offered a few questions to ponder before they did their diet webcast...and I feel it important to answer them for my own journey...so why not?

1. Why are you overweight?

You know...I get tired of answering this question. I think every self help book related to weight reduction asks this question first. I am sure I have had a ton of different reasons. Some of them are very surface... I am insulin resistant and have PCOS and a hereditary push to the cush. I have a love affair with pastry. My mom died...etc.

The first time I gained weight in my whole life was when I entered kindergarten and my mother began working full time. I can't remember it clearly. I don't know what I was feeling. I do know that without her supervision, the TV became my babysitter. Food definitley was my friend. My father traveled so much...that he was normally out of the picture, and no one in my family was skinny. But, to that point I was an averaged sized kid. I know that I wanted desparately to do gymnastics. My mom took me to one class. I thought I liked it, but I must have cried about coming to the second class...so I never went back.

Childhood was a mix of unbelievable abandonment and disengagement for me. My parents worked hard to provide for us monetarily, but they were rarely there even when they were there. They were never authentically in the moment, present with us. We lived far away from others...and although I had a huge backyard, I rarely played in it. Too much effort. I was absorbed by TV. I watched it 12-14 hours a day in the summer, if not more. Being bored, it was all too easy to eat bags of potato chips or anything else that was in the kitchen. I screamed at dinners for more food. When told no, I would scream until I got it.

By third grade, my mother became concerned. I weighed 98 lbs. The doctor told me I needed to go on a diet. So, my mom came home and tried to restrict my food but everyone else ate exactly the same. I never changed, and I continue to gain weight. Middle school was horrific for me. Tipping in over 200lbs, the popular boys in the school dubbed me the "Titanic." I was horribly harrassed. They would pull pranks on me, grab my chest, stick gum in my hair...you name it. No one wanted to be my friend because it was dangerous to be. I could see my lunch time friends cringe when I sat at their table because they knew they could be in for it.

I was so depressed, I ate. I never told my family about my pain. I don't know if my parents ever truly knew what I was going through. I think my sibblings were old enough to be semi-sheltered from it. I thought about killing myself every day. I hated myself. On my birthday, June 27, 1991, my father did something that changed my life. He scheduled an orthodontist appointment where they cemented a device in my mouth to correct my bite. They told me I couldn't eat sugar while it was in. Although I am sure some people would have done it anyway, I saw an opportunity. I couldn't really eat solid food, it was just to hard. So I spent the entire summer sipping breakfast shakes. As the pounds melted off, I began to move more...ride my bike.

By the next Fall, I was 150lbs and nearly a size 8. When I went back to school, no one recognized me. No one called me any more names. But, instead of being enthusiastic...I realized I kind of became invisible. I had fat girl syndrome. Although I was thin and pretty, I didn't really see myself as thin enough, and I was never very confident. I found myself outside of school, in a show choir. You would have thought the boys would have came a calling, and in some ways they did. But, I never really had a real boyfriend. For such a long time, just being associated with me was the worst thing ever for a boy...and that just kind of lingered. I never trusted that a guy wanted to know me for me.

Through most of college I maintained the same weight, plus or minus a few pounds. But, I became desparate for love. I was so love sick and tired of being alone. It was what I thought about day and night. Of course, I always had crushes on unavailable men. In the most significant relationship of this time, I fell in love with someone who were do nothing but destroy me. I won't go into details, but the whole relationship was built on dishonesty...and it ended with my heart in a thousand pieces.

I moved to Chicago to get away from it. I thought for sure all the weight I gained would melt off there with a fresh start. Instead, pressures from my career and the significant illness of my mother packed on the pounds. On the day of my mother's funeral, I weighed 300lbs. I was sick of being fat. Sick of being sad. I thought for sure the pounds would drop...but they stuck no matter what diet I did. I weight to therapists, doctors, trainers, weight loss surgery seminars...but I never figured it out. My schedule was out of control and planning what I ate and exercising never worked into my life. If it did, a financial crisis would occur and I wouldn't be able to continue. I wanted to die.

In 2007, a most wonderful thing happened. My most favorite people in all the world moved acrossed the street. That year, at my 30th birthday party, I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life. But, a year ago, my friend Nick and I embarked on the Biggest Loser competition and both lost significant weight through much hard work, sweat and tears.

You think the story would end happy, but after the competition...I went back to my old ways. My father was diagnosed with the same cancer that took my mother's life, and my sister got married and moved several states away. It seemed like my world was collapsing....and my weight kept piling on.

2. What are you really hungry for?

Okay. No...I am not taking this straight from Oprah. I had actually been coming to this realization beforehand...but it is true. I am never really hungry for the food, I am hungry for love. Desparate for love. When my mom left me alone in that house and chose work over us, my self-esteem took a nose dive. No one was there to talk with me. I felt like I could never tell her my honest feelings because she would belittle them or ignore them. My family wasn't big into physical touch. I went years without hugs. Not able to be affectionate, and too afraid to try, I never learned how to have normal relationships.

So, in college...when I wanted so desparately to be in one...I chose a relationship with someone I trusted who in the end was not available to me. His dismissal of my love sent me on one of the worst depressions of my life. I became so hurt that I blocked that part of my life. I poured myself into work and activities to dismiss that I need anyone else in my life. All I could rely on was myself. But I didn't even love me. I was my worst enemy. When I cried and looked for soothing, I didn't get it from me...I got it from buttercream. I hated me with passion.

My mother's death was another blow on top of this self described ticking time bomb. The one who might have caused the weight gain to begin with, left me the ultimate dismissal....death. My whole life changed at that moment. The moment I saw her take her last breath. I began working for an employer out of guilt. It was self-inflicted punishment for not being good enough. No matter what I did to try and change things there, I knew I would never be a priority if I stayed.

When I left for my current employer, I took an $8000 pay cut. I was miserable at first. Guilt ridden that I left the precious job. I was so numb that when I found freedom, I was depressed because I didn't know what to do with it.

The turning point were my friends. Because I loved them so much, and I knew they loved me, I began to love myself....for just a second more. When I saw them be affectionate with each other, in an authentic way, I knew that not only did I want that for myself, but I deserved it too. When Nick and I joined the contest, I don't know if I was ready to lose weight...but being able to have such strong support made failure less of an option. I said NO to things for the first time in my entire life. I made sure I had the food I needed to nourish my body, and I was committed to exercise.

Without the junk food, I found clarity...but I didn't like what I saw. I would go on emotional waves...up and down. Nick would talk with me for hours through them.  I had a huge issue not eating up to my calories, but we knew I had to to lose weight. So, on days Nick actually force fed me. When I didn't feel I could go any further, Nick carried me. So, after 12 weeks...I had lost 52lbs.

Since the competition was over, Nick kind of lost his impetence to keep going. We missed work outs, started eating some of our favorite foods. We became involved in a big summer production. Long nights led to take aways and booze. The final straw was when my father was diagnosed with cancer.

My life stopped again for my parent. I took a leave of absence from work and stood by his side at every doctor's appointment, hospital stay, weary day at home. I changed his dressings, fed him, empty his pooh and piss bags. He became everything. At the same time, my sister decided to get married and relied on me for almost everything. She would boldly expect me to drop everything to assist her because that was just what I was suppose to do.

I became apathetic. Seeing your little sister get married, knowing you are the last sibbling to remain single, is a horrible thing. It makes you feel like you are a wart on the face of society. I was miserable. I cried nearly every day. I felt trapped with no where out.

The real turning point for me was a drunken night with my friends. They actually got into a fight and I mentioned that they shouldn't forget that at the end of the day they had each other and that was the most important part. Somehow, the dialogue got turned on to me. They told me if I really wanted someone, I would do something about it. I said I was. I had done dozen of ads online, actually dated a guy for the first time in almost a decade, etc. They said it wasn't enough. Then they went on about my appearance and how I didn't take care of myself well enough.

At first, I was just completely taken a back. Then I began to say, you know...sometimes people were just meant to be alone for the rest of their life. Love was not in the cards for me. The sooner I got real with the fact, the easier my life would be. This sent my friends reeling. Kel got into my face. If you don't love you, no one else will. I love you, Nick loves you...so many people love you. But that will mean nothing if you can't love yourself.

I had to ponder that for several days. How does one love themselves? What does that look like? To be honest, I don't even know if I still know the answer. I know it is an area I desparetly need to work on. Also, I have come to realize that  I need to be in a relationship with a significant other. I need to be loved. I need to allow someone else to love me intimately. So, I have been working hard on that end too.

Trust me, I am fearful as all hell. This is completely foreign territory to me.

3. Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past?

Lack of discipline. Escape to my old ways. Allowing me to not be the priority. Putting others first. Losing myself.

4. Why do you want to lose weight?

Honestly...I just don't feel like me. I look in the mirror, and I am not there. That doesn't mean that I exactly hate my body, I just know that the real me isn't here yet. My outside doesn't match my inside. I don't need to have a model's body for this. But, I just know my body isn't authentic to my soul right now. Also, I have to for health issues. If I can't manage this problem, I will die from it.