I, Hamplanet I used to be a hamplanet. This is me (on the far left) circa 2013. Clearly, I came up short on the genuhticks lottery. My mom and dad and brother were fat. Everyone on my dad's side of the family was fat, and most on my mother's side were butter golems, too. I don't exactly know where I went wrong. There are pictures of me when I was about 4 or 5 years old where I'm so thin you could see my ribs clearly. My mother used to tell stories about how I would refuse to eat anything other than "cheese sandwiches" growing up -- a slice of american cheese between two slices of white bread with dijon mustard. Somewhere along the line, however, I began to develop a love for food, as well as a steadily increasing circumference. My middle and high school years were not enjoyable. At this point, I was visibly overweight. I didn't have a lot of friends, and I received the nickname "Jelly Rolls" from how my stomach rippled in the gym locker room. My parents, who were both obese themselves, mocked me constantly for my weight, telling me I'd end up like my Aunt Deb, who weighs (I'm assuming, if she isn't already dead from the 'beetus) 400 pounds. They made me join a competitive year-round swim team, but I couldn't out-swim my fork. There was nothing more embarrassing than being lapped 2 or 3 times by people who were actually fit, but it never once occurred to me that I should probably lose weight. If becoming fit involved eating less, I wanted nothing to do with it. At the end of college -- when the family photo was taken -- I was at my worse. I had my own apartment, and my parents provided me about $400 a month for food. I remember drinking 8 or 9 cans of Mountain Dew a night while playing League of Legends. My McBeetus consumption was so bad that I ended up in the hospital with kidney stones. There would be nights where I would eat two large Papa John's pizzas with a 2-liter bottle of sugar water. I stood at 5' 4" and weighed 200 pounds in the Cozumel photo. While I was preparing to graduate, I was also dealing with my gender identity. I came out to my hyper-conservative God-fearing parental hams with my plans to transition and they completely lost it. My dad beat the shit out me and kicked me out of the house with a trash bag of my belongings and my cat. I ended up living on the streets of Boise, Idaho. I had no money, and what money I did manage to scrounge up went to my hormones, which was my first priority. During this time, I began to lose a lot of weight simply because I had nothing to eat. I lived off of water and scraps of food for almost 8 months, and I actually began to get used to living with a very low caloric intake. To this day, nothing makes me lose my shit faster than listening to some lard beast kvetch about how it's STAHVING and will die unless it gets its third helping of lunch right now. Looking in the mirror after that 8 months was an eye opener. I never thought it was possible, but there was an honest-to-goodness thin person starting back at me. I weigh in at around 125 now, compared to the obeast I was before. I've gotten really into fencing with the help and coaching of a friend of mine. I also got into cycling and I still stick to a 1200 calorie diet. Unfortunately, I moved in with fat roommates. They're about as gluttonous in every aspect of their lives as they are with their diets. They tell me all the time to "stop worrying about my weight" and that I'm "really pretty, but if I lose any more weight I'm going to make myself sick" and that I should be eating "2000 calories per day". (lol) I don't know if it's misplaced concern or they're just being crabs in a bucket. I don't hang out with them much. They do serve as a helpful reminder of something I never want to be again, though. TL;DR: Was fat throughout childhood, got thin. Fuck fat people.