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 went to my first FA meeting in Virginia—only three miles from home. I felt self conscious in my 51-year-old, 5’ 6”, 206-pound bloated body, next to those lean, healthy women. Relief came when they said I didn’t have to speak, only introduce myself. I tried to get comfortable on the grey metal chair and listen as a woman who had lost 100 pounds talked about what FA had done for her life. I was magically motivated by her story and decided to stop eating flour and sugar. When I got home, I found a diet on the Web that excluded flour and sugar products and I woke up the next morning determined. After a few days, my husband asked, “What’s wrong with you?” I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms, including headaches and a short temper, but I didn’t let that stop me. The second week, I went to another FA meeting. ... Continue Reading
Six years ago, I went with my family to the village of Nasivikoso in the highlands of Fiji to visit the family that my son had stayed with during the previous four summers. They lived in a stunningly gorgeous, but very remote and barely accessible, farming village without running water and electricity. I left our hotel in Nadi with a few of the provisions that I knew I needed for our overnight stay and was assured by my son and his friends in town that the host family in the village would provide the other farm-fresh food items I would need. I knew I might have to do with smaller portions or maybe let go of an item, like I do when I dine in a restaurant, but I had no idea how much letting go I was going to have to do. One of my son’s Fijian friends drove... Continue Reading
I’ve always loved to travel, but most of my itineraries were built around food. On one memorable trip to Chicago, in one day I spent 45 minutes at the Art Institute, which is a world-class museum, and six or seven hours taking cabs around town feeding my food addiction. Chasing after the food instead of seeing life left me feeling empty and unsatisfied. I came away from that trip feeling even more hopeless about controlling food and my weight, and I missed my opportunity to really engage with life outside of food. I have traveled quite a bit, abstinently, since joining FA. I’ve been all over the U.S. for business, and spent ten days in Europe visiting my brother. I rented an apartment in Copenhagen, shopped for groceries at the local market, and had wonderful weighed-and- measured-meals that were fuel for my exploration of the country, rather than being the... Continue Reading
As a child I was needy and insecure. My earliest memories are of being filled with fear, doubt, and insecurities. I was never comfortable in my own skin. Although I was loved and well cared for, something was missing inside me. I simply could not get enough. Food played a big role in my family. My stay-at-home-mother cooked and baked, and many family celebrations included lots of great food. Somewhere along the line, I figured out that food helped me feel better and took the edge off. Some of my earliest memories include sneaking home-baked frozen sugar treats from the freezer in the basement, then rearranging the layers, hoping nobody would notice. I played games that involved sugar snacks, and ate forbidden foods until I felt sick. I look at pictures of me growing up, and while I was always conscious of being bigger than my sisters, I was not... Continue Reading
