My life used to be very empty. I was sad, disillusioned, and often morose. I wasn’t afraid I was going to die, but rather that I was going to live for another 30 years in a miserable existence. My body was deteriorating. I was pre-diabetic, morbidly obese, and had asthma, allergies, arthritis, depression, a skin condition, vein problems, sciatica, and the not-yet-diagnosed killer, food addiction. I didn’t know what food addiction was at the time. I believed everything I had been told when I was young, that weight problems ran in our family, that I was big boned, statuesque, and had child-bearing hips. I thought it was pretty much a done deal that I was going to be fat, so I figured I might as well eat. When I reached 270 pounds, I paid a significant sum of money to a surgeon to remove 80% of my stomach so I... Continue Reading
I was searching for a solution to get out of my obese body. I tried injections, ate raw eggs, drank oil and milk three times a day, and went on a grapefruit diet. I tried a wine diet, where I drank one glass of wine three times a day. One last thing my doctor suggested was that I should wire my teeth and have liquid food through a straw. I am diabetic type 2. My doctor warned me I could lose my legs or I could become blind. My mother was diabetic and died at the age of 50. My father was diabetic, refused to have treatment, and died in his 60s. I joined a health club and decided to become a water aerobics fitness instructor. I also taught dance exercise at a College. I lost weight, became more interested in energy healing, and became a practitioner of Qigong massage,... Continue Reading
Five years ago I came into FA, desperate to lose weight. I weighed 330 pounds and was ravaged by medical complications. I had sleep apnea, hypertension, fibromyalgia, renal failure, incipient heart failure, premature osteoarthritis, and pre-diabetes. At the age of 55, and after decades of obesity, my body had lost its ability to buffer any further insults. It had lost its functional reserve to the point where organs were starting to fail and show the clinical effects of longstanding food abuse. The only option open was bariatric surgery. Nothing else had worked and I thought nothing else was available or would work. I had reached rock bottom. Some would say that it was serendipity that I heard about FA while driving home. For me it was nothing less than a miracle, because the week before I found FA, I was on my knees crying and praying to God to give... Continue Reading
I was sitting at home having an internal argument with myself about whether to attend the Diabetes Expo in my city, yet again. I had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes a few years earlier and had attended the expo a few times in the past. I never really felt that I got much out of it, other than a few freebies and samples. For some reason (I now say it was God whispering in my ear), I decided to go. As usual, I didn’t feel I got a whole lot out of it until I happened upon a table with some banners behind that said, “Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous.” It immediately piqued my curiosity, because my sisters and I had just been having a conversation about being addicted to sugar. We were having this discussion while we consumed large quantities of flour and sugar items. I saw that... Continue Reading
I always resented being fat. I never fully accepted responsibility for what I put in my mouth and how it showed up on my body. All my life I had been told that I was “statuesque,” “big-boned,” and had “child-bearing hips.” My mother was overweight, and so was her mother, and I was told that heavy women run in our family. It really didn’t seem to me as though I could do anything about my weight. So I ate to numb the pain of the rough hand life had dealt me. At age 55, standing 5’7” tall and weighing around 270 pounds, I really resented the doctor telling me I was morbidly obese, that the knee replacement surgery I had hoped for to cure my arthritis could not be done unless I lost some weight, that I was pre-diabetic, and probably had sleep apnea. I also suffered from a litany... Continue Reading
