It's not my fault...uh....really!

So I'm blogging twice today because I feel like it. I starting thinking about how much time I have spent blaming others for my overweight life.
-It's my mother's fault for leaving when I was a toddler
-It's my father's fault for never taking me anywhere except to bars and baseball games and feeding us garbage day after day.
-It's my brother's fault for being an ass and treating me like a second rate citizen, meanwhile having people fawn over his charming, but really fake, ways
-It's my grandmother's fault for feeding me cookies and not teaching me control. For allowing me to remain fat as a child and not finding ways to help me.
-It's my husband's fault for not loving me like I want to be loved. For looking at porn and making me feel so unattractive
-It's my kid's fault for screaming and crying and fighting and wearing down my every last nerve.
-It's the media's fault for stresses crappy food that we HAVE to try.
-It's restaurants fault for doubling portion sizes so we are really eating for 2 when we eat out
-It's all THEIR fault.
Um...well now that I think about it... after a certain point it became MY fault. I can give blame to the parents for not starting me off on a course for proper nutrition, but once I became a teenager, really it was up to me. A friend of my in jr. high's parents offered to send me to a "fat camp" one summer. They were going to pay for me to go and for the clothes. I didn't go. I was afraid. I was embarrassed. My father would have let me. Now I wish that I had gone. That was my fault.

When I moved out of the house at 18 I had every opportunity to buy healthy food and eat well. Instead I ate Ramen Noodles and Chips and Cookies. That was my choice.

When I got a job at an international bank at 20, I could have eaten the salad bar for lunch, but instead I got a sandwich with fries. That was my choice

When I got married, I could have chosen to make healthier meals instead of meatloaf and mashed potatoes and cranberry chicken. I could have chosen not to visit the Chinese Restaurant next door every other day for Lunch Special #31 - Chicken with Broccoli and Chicken Fingers
But I didn't.

When I went to college I did not have to eat 2 candy bars most everyday, but I did.

You see, it was someone else's fault, but for the past 20 or so years, it has been the choices *I* have made that has led me to the overweight life. It's very easy to pass the buck and place the blame. It is harder to recognize and accept that most of the blame lies with me. I didn't want to be this way, it's just what happened when I refused to take care of myself. It isn't out of ignorance. I've known what to do for almost all of the years where I was responsible. It's not rocket science: "Eat Less, Move More, Drink Water" I've tried WW 4 or 5 times in the past, but I am realizing, it isn't about a program...it's about a lifestyle. People are healthy because they work at it. Noone else is making them. I want to blame myself for being healthy. I want to take the credit for THAT. But in all honesty and shame, I have to take the blame for THIS - the overweight life.