222!

That's 7 pounds down for the month of May! Most of that weight loss is attributed to me cutting back severly on my food intake. My June income is already spent for rent, electricity, gas and the phone bill. I still owe $100 on the electric bill and $100 to a friend who loaned me money in early May. We will have to try to make due with what we have in our pantry and fridge for the next 4 weeks. No milk, a half dozen eggs, half a bag of bread, 10 pounds of potatoes, a couple pounds of cheese, some cans of soup, noodles, some cans of beans. That's about it. I don't know what to do at this point. I don't want to hit up the food kitchens. Our town is struggling as it is with through the roof unemployment, housing crisis and some of the highest rents in the country. Taking a box of food away from a family, who is worse off than we are, is unconscionable.

Every week there are more garage sales than the previous week. Kids selling their toys. Adults selling anything that might bring in a buck. And the stories are always the same....foreclosure, laid off, hours cut, disablity, medical crisis that wiped them out, or as is often the case, a family member either on the brink or about to fall through the cracks and this is a last ditch effort to try to help them.

No one has commented on my weight loss, probably because they know what I'm doing and don't want to bring it up. That's fine with me. As happy as I am to lose the weight, because that might allow me to be well enough to work again, it's hard knowing the family is in such dire straits and that had I been normal sized, and didn't have the weight to lose, I would not have been able to sacrifice for them because the consequences to me would have been too detrimental.

I am ashamed of my weight. No longer because it highlighted my lack of self control and indulgence (though, a metabolic disorder triggered by severe sleep apnea is at the heart of it), but because of the waste of resources that we need today. I am acutely aware of every bite of food I take now, and have gone two days without eating this weekend because every meal I kept away from myself, provided for my family. It's not a healthy way to operate but I'm desperate.