Don, since you're being so honest I'll give you an honest response. I've felt this way the majority of my life and for all the wrong reasons. My health was never a top priority. I was very hard on myself. Most of my life I've always felt very unworthy of things, including love. I've been single the majority of my life even though I would like to be in a relationship. It's a hard thing to shake from your head that you're really worthy of being loved. I mean which guy in his right mind would want a girl so overweight? I guess as a result of those feelings for me, I turned to food. It's pretty sad how we can get ourselves to believe we're not significant enough to take care of ourselves and how we allow something so insignificant like food offer us such comfort and support while at the same we're slowing killing ourselves in the process.
I've never liked being fat either. I've never liked being unhealthy, but who did I really have to change for? There was nobody but myself and sadly I just never felt that that was enough of a reason to give up my "most treasured foods". So , I did say screw it for most of my life and kept on going down that road.
I'm not really sure what made me wake up other than the fear of death I guess. Seeing the older members of my family suffering from various illnesses (heart disease and diabetes run in both sides of my family) spooked me enough to say I need to change for me. Then I was diagnosed with RA and I KNEW I had to something NOW! No more delaying it.
After losing nearly 50lb I feel a lot better! I feel much more better about myself and much more confident. I'm being honest in saying at times I still wonder if I'm worthy of being in a stable relationship. After about 2 decades of bashing myself with these thoughts, it'll take a while to get over them I guess.