I commissioned BB&W fan and forum member, Lasha Lane, to contribute to our “Best You” campaign because her weight loss journey is so remarkable, it begs to be shared. Here’s an excerpt:

Growing up fat wasn’t a horrible experience for me. I wasn’t teased for much in primary school, besides for being the only black girl. I was pretty thin as a child. I didn’t start gaining weight until the age of eight. I was traumatized by a family member and attempted suicide that year and after that I started packing the weight on, slowly, but steadily.

My parents were kind about it because they didn’t know how to handle the situation delicately. Neither of them were obese growing up. They were both athletes. Now the question remains, “Why, if they were active, was I not? Why were there no extracurricular activities?” Well, my mother raised us as strict Jehovah’s Witnesses so we were not allowed to do anything that involved interacting with “worldly” individuals. This included dating, dances, sports and anything that would take us away from dedicating our life to the religion. Now, before you start shaking your head and wagging your fingers about JW’s, please realize that their beliefs are no different than your typical mainstream Christian religion. This is not a religious debate. Just like the church has had a hand in people making bad choices in their life ours helped my mother make bad choices for her children. My talking about this is only so you can better understand why my childhood shaped my life as an obese person.

In Junior High I was casually teased for being fat, but it never really phased me. I was teased more for talking white and being proper. I grew up in a predominantly middle-class ethnic neighborhood in the city of Carson, California. At that time, Carson was predominantly Black, Hispanic and Polynesian. Also, during that time I was becoming more and more “different”. I knew from a very early age that I was attracted to White males and that I was interested in alternative subculture. Where I was raised, there was none of that. I was attracted to many Samoan and Hawaiian boys, but since I was not allowed to date, I never considered my weight being the hindrance in getting their attention.

High School, however, was the turning point. I was accepted to a medical magnet high school for gifted and talented children and bussed all the way into LA. At this time in my life I was starting to pull away from my religious past and started trying to find out who I really was. I was fighting with my mother and even landed in foster care for a brief period of time at the age of 16. Culture shock! For the first time I was not the JW girl. I was still the white washed girl in my foster home, but not at school. Here I was just a girl. This is when I started to realize that my weight mattered, even if only a little bit. My high school was different in the fact that the smart kids were popular, so although I was fat, I was considered pretty cool. Also, the fact that I was dark and alternative and very pretty took away from the pounds. This is another pitfall. Being attractive and fat skews your reality of life and the way you are treated. I still got attention. I was still sought after and I had my first interactions with boys. What I didn’t realize is that it was never me choosing the boys that I wanted (they were NEVER interested in me). It was always the boys that were friends of mine that I settled for. Not to say they were unattractive or less than, but they were NOT my first choice. This became abundantly clear during Prom time. Subsequently the boy I asked to the Prom, who was a close/best friend of mine all throughout High School, broke our date in order to go with another girl at the very last possible moment. I was devastated. I knew that he had done this because she wasn’t fat and it shook me to my very core and more weight came on.

College wasn’t much better, but after college… well lets just say I realized that even though I could pull in the very attractive men, no one was making me their top priority. I had never learned how to be treated by men. I had no life experiences as a youth to guide me through what was acceptable and what was not. I thought that because I was getting attention, even though I was fat, that it was good and that I needed to change nothing. I formed a very positive self outlook and was very confident in myself and my appearance. I started modeling and performing at nightclubs. I was a force to be reckoned with. Because of my lifestyle and subculture I learned how to be strong, independent and fearless, which are all amazing things to be. I was loved and respected by those in my community. These things shaped who I still am today, but even after all the knowledge, self confidence, education and life experience, there was still a part of me that was sad, depressed and lonely.

Read the remainder of the story here. Only VIP’s have access. If you haven’t yet become a VIP, click here.