I didn’t come into willingly. I was very angry and full of remorse and resentments. I weighed 347 pounds. However, that was not my top weight. I had been 360 pounds prior to my Vertical Banded Gastroplasty better known as a VBG. I lost 80 pounds in 3 months and it was back before I knew it was ever off my body. The surgeon recommended a support group for all patients who had the weight loss surgery. My life was a mess. I was over indulging in flour and sugar products after exercising vigorously on the elliptical machine. I would be in excruciating pain. Nonetheless, I would go over to the Walgreens and buy six of the sugar products they had on sale. The more exercise I did, the more I ate. I felt like the exercise gave me permission to eat whatever I wanted. One day I met this... Continue Reading
I had been in FA for about six weeks when I went to a café with a neighbor in my tiny, quaint home town. It was warm and cozy as we stood in line waiting to order, and I looked in the curved glass case at the food items I used to buy. I noticed a particular baked item that someone had decorated in a unique and beautiful way. Both my food addict brain and my artist’s heart were entranced. I mentioned it to my friend. “Isn’t that the prettiest, most beautiful item like that you’ve EVER seen?” “Oh, yes,” she said. We ordered our beverages and went out into the sweet air and fall sunshine to sit on the patio. I began telling her about the new program I was in. “You know, I think I might be a food addict,” I said. “Oh, no! I don’t think you... Continue Reading
After a semi-successful bout on a commercial diet, I weighed 170 pounds. At 5 feet 3 ½ inches tall, I was far from slim, but considered myself acceptable. I was 47 years old. At a routine visit for my COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), my pulmonologist said, “You could do less damage to your body by gaining 100 pounds than you are doing by continuing to smoke.” I quit smoking, and with his “permission,” promptly gained 50 pounds. Then I developed breast cancer and had a lumpectomy. A few years later, I reached 236 pounds. In addition to being morbidly obese, I also developed type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, an enlarged heart from high blood pressure, and stage 1b lung cancer. I had more doctors than friends. After having a procedure for my lung cancer, the thoracic surgeon said, “You better hope this worked. I don’t feel... Continue Reading
I am now 225 pounds lighter than I was in the 11th grade, when I weighed 367 pounds. I have spent most of my adult life living in a 300-plus pound body. I am learning to live in this new body, and I have never been a fast learner. A whole new world has opened up to me and I feel like I’m living in a foreign country and don’t know the language. I never thought I would see this day, let alone be here to live it. The first time I realized things were different was one day last summer when I was shopping for some summer clothes. I went into the store and tried on the 2X and it was too big, as was the 1X and XL. I had no clue what to do. I called someone in FA. She told me to go to the lady’s... Continue Reading
“Here, eat this, you’ll feel better.” From my earliest years, these comforting words formed a bond of love between my mother, food, and me. However, it wasn’t long before it turned into an unhealthy relationship that took over my life. My growing pathological attachment to quantities of food, used to comfort or to calm me in the moment, became the basis of what I now know as my addiction. Food became my “drug of choice.” Obese, with stretch marks by age five and secretly eating in excess, my entire life was characterized by shame and humiliation around my behavior and my body image. I would manipulate others in order to gain access to more food. I would lie about, or steal, quantities of food, primarily flour and sugar products, which elevated my body weight to 300 pounds by age fourteen. I was the heaviest person in our village and, later... Continue Reading
