Hi, my name is Leah and I'm an addict.

Food is my drug of choice. I've fought this battle for as long as I can remember. Weight Watchers with my mom at age 10, being aware I wasn't supposed to eat fattening pizza at a 4th grade party, removing the labels from my Jenny Craig chicken salad cans at lunch as a 7th grader. Every diet under the sun with varying degrees of success and failure, and I always end up here, fighting for control of my impulses and feigning for a snack. A food crackhead.

Why do we self sabatoge ourselves, ruin what we work so hard for, continue the cycle of destruction even though we know better, wish for salvation while salavating over something that will never taste as good as we imagine it in our minds? I am no different from any other addict, alcoholic, gambler. I know better, want better, yet I find myself unable to say no, giving in time and time again. Its sickening.

My husband has been struggling the past nine years to 'rewire my brain.' Its neccessary to my survival. I would not live the long, full life I desire and deserve if I continue down the path I have been on the past 20 years. I can write a page full of excuses, legit reasoning behind my bulge, but still haven't figured it out yet. I'm tired of fighting myself, and losing.

I'm tired of being passed up, waking up and going to sleep with my kness aching, ankles still swollen worse than when I was actually pregnant. I'm tired of carrying around this physical manifest of my pain I can't explain or even fully understand.

Have you ever been so baffled by a part of yourself, struggled to understand why you do the thigns you do?

Some people abuse drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, gambling, cigarettes, the list goes on and on. I use food. I saw Al Roker in an interview say something like, 'If you lined up all the vices people have, the best cocaine in the world, next to a joint of the best pot, next to the finest wine, next to a stale donut, I'd go for the donut.' Me too. I can't walk past a cupcake without eating it. How can someone so strong in so many other ways be so weak???