1. Being picked last for every game of kickball in elementary school.

2. The time I took a kickball to the face in elementary school.

3. Every elementary school Presidential Fitness Challenges where I was clearly substandard in hanging from a bar.

4. The year another girl cheated on the Presidential Fitness Challenge so that she wouldn’t be dead last, making me dead last.

5. DNA, pure and simple.

6. The time in 5th grade that kid nicknamed me “Porky.”

7. Later in 5th grade when my friend told me I looked like Hoppopotamous from The Wuzzles in my purple bathing suit.

8. Trying to find clothes that fit in 5th grade because I was a Porky Hoppopotamous.

9. That day the summer after 5th grade when a distant cousin told me I looked like Chunk from The Goonies (accurate).

10. The time in 6th grade when that kid who nicknamed me “Porky” re-nicknamed me “Fro-head” because I had dropped some weight and wasn’t so porky, but had big hair.

11. When the guys in chorus nicknamed me “Black & Decker Pecker Wrecker” in 8th grade because I had dropped weight, and grown my hair out, but had gotten braces.

12. The group of boys who nicknamed me “Princess” at a church camp.

13. The group of girls who dumped ice water on me while I was asleep at church camp.

14. At the age of 14, being told by a much older guy he wanted to “fuck my brains out” at church camp.

15. Being told at age 15, by an adult male co-worker that I was “getting fat.”

16. Spending all of the money I was making at my job on Jenny Craig because my male co-worker told me I was getting fat.

17. Dexatrim/Diet Dr. Pepper breakfasts and skipping lunch in high school because I had lost a bunch of weight on Jenny Craig and liked it.

18. Reading the note in my 12th grade yearbook from the kid who had called me “Porky” and “Fro-Head” apologizing for being a jerk.

19. Constantly worrying in college if I was getting fat.

20. Getting fat in college.

21. Getting the nickname “Big Al” from a guy who worked where I did my college internship.

22. Being asked to work behind the scenes my senior year of Sorority Rush.

23. Wearing sweatpants (my boyfriend’s) to class most of my final term of college.

24. My boyfriend referring to a store where I shopped regularly as Lane Giant.

25. Every friend/co-worker/relative who has ever sent me a diet, recommended a diet, asked me about my diet.

26. Every doctor who has ever recommended a diet to help me lose weight.

27. Every doctor who has ever recommended pills to help me lose weight.

28. Every doctor who has ever recommended surgery to help me lose weight.

29. The specific doctor who told me all I need to do to lose weight is burn more calories than I consume. When I was 45.

30. Every dime I have given Weight Watchers.

31. All the people who tell me I’m funny and just like Melissa McCarthy. Even though she is way cuter, and my humor is closer to that of John Mulaney.

32. The fact that I’ll see a cute blouse advertised by Old Navy or Loft, but they don’t make it in my size. But I can get a top with a peplum, instead.

33. That time the man sitting across the aisle from me let the flight attendant know I’d need a belt extender when actually I had buckled my blouse into the seatbelt and was trying to get it loose.

35. Running into a supervisor of an old job, and him noting that I’d put on some weight.

36. The fact that I had to own up to being obese to get the shot now, rather than waiting until May like all my contemporaries.

It was all worth it.