Adrienne Hood

Plain and simple, my unhealthy relationship with food and dislike of exercise started in my childhood. I did maybe a year or two of dance and T-ball when I was in elementary school but that’s the extent of my experience in any kind of organized sport or activity. Seriously. That’s it. The only physical activity I actually enjoyed was frisbee and badminton. Corny but true. As for food, it was terrible. If I was hungry, I’d cook something like an entire box of stuffing and eat it all by myself, straight out of the pot. In high school, I ate a soft pretzel with cheese, a bag of Cheetos, and washed it down with soda almost daily. My family, while they had good intentions of wanting to spend time together, relied on sitting down to eat to reconnect. 

Food was considered a highlight in my day with no thoughts as to what I was really putting in my body. If it tasted good, I ate it.

My weight began to reflect this lifestyle early on too. By around eight years old, I was already aware of my ballooning waistline. By the end of elementary school, I had already tried a few diets of my own design. Of course, they all failed miserably. I felt defeated each time and soothed myself with, you guessed it, food. It was a vicious cycle and one I think too many people are familiar with. In high school, I was a good 30-40 pounds above a healthy weight. I even signed up for track and field once when I discovered I enjoyed throwing shot-put and discus through a good friend. I got as far as receiving my official track and field shirt before learning that a one-mile run was a part of the daily warm-ups regardless of what event you did. I immediately dropped out.

When I was a senior in high school, I ruptured a disc in my back. A few months after that, I got married. The combination of being told to rest and adjusting to living with someone who also had bad eating habits made my weight skyrocket. I quickly put weight on and hit my all-time high of 180 pounds on my 5’4” frame within the year. Not long after, my doctor dropped a bomb on me by announcing my cholesterol was way too high. I either needed to get a grip of the situation or go on cholesterol medication at the age of 20. I was floored. We lived on Scott Air Force Base at the time since my husband was enlisted so soon after that appointment, I went to see a trainer at the base gym and ordered one of those prepackaged meal plans to try and shed the weight. I managed to get off about fifteen pounds but soon stalled because, while I was going through the motions,

I didn't fully understand the changes, so they were more of a temporary fix rather than a lifestyle change. I was on the fast-track to yo-yo dieting.

Then, in 2006, my husband got deployed. This was my turning point.