I was in Cuernavaca, Mexico for a college term abroad. They call it the “City Of Eternal Spring”. Mexico was an eye-opening experience with incredible rain forests, beaches and beautiful people with a rich colorful culture, and it is also a place with corruption, poor areas and a smell I will never forget. Living here for 3 months with a humble host family, whose home had been robbed just a few weeks before my roommate and I arrived, I had such a determination that my behavior around food would be different and I was convinced that knowledge of all of this would do it. Yet, not more than a couple weeks into the time of my visit I found myself in a situation where I felt guilty about the amount of dinner I ate with some friends and the snacks that are readily available at the school we were attending.... Continue Reading
Years ago, before I was introduced to FA and given the option of a new life of sanity, I was invited to a bachelorette party for a friend of my boyfriend. I didn’t really have friends; I didn’t really understand the point, except to prove that I was popular. I thought that friends were like trophies to display or degrees to hang on the wall. I got my fill of being around people at work or at parties, and that was enough. I was only interested in time alone with my food, where I could eat as much as I wanted and whatever I wanted. If friends were people I was supposed to confide in, that was the last thing that I wanted. I certainly wasn’t going to tell them my secrets. The biggest secret was that I was bulimic. I did everything I could to convince people that I... Continue Reading
Joy and happiness were not part of any move before I came into FA. When my family moved when I was a teenager, the only thing I looked forward to was my excitement about our refrigerator being outside while the kitchen was being remodeled. This allowed me to keep my sneaking food more anonymous. I also thought that I wouldn’t eat as much because it would be more “work” to go out in the cold to get my binge foods, but the weather didn’t stop me. I was a horrible roommate before Program took over my heart and my life. I stole my roommates’ food and took up an unequal amount of fridge space. I binged on large quantities of food, over-exercised, and purged into the toilet. I was inconsiderate and didn’t clean up after myself. I judged my college roommates for eating what I thought was more than ... Continue Reading
My husband has always said that pain is the greatest motivator. I started FA in so much mental and physical pain. At 5”1’, I weighed 231 pounds (104.8 kilos), was pre-diabetic and on the heart transplant list. I also had a roof over my head, a full belly and loving family and friends. I was not under a bridge, worrying where my next meal would come from, but his was my rock bottom. Living yet dying. I spent years obsessing about food and my weight. I obsessed about when and what to eat. Eat, binge, purge, starve and then a sprinkle of depression with a side of anxiety. The last few years of my addiction, food did not taste good anymore. Hence, the larger bags of foods to sustain the longer binges. The mass amounts of intake turned into purging. I was searching for that joy, the joy food used... Continue Reading
When I weighed 212 pounds (about 96 kilograms) at age 17-18 years of age, I told myself I would never weigh that much ever again and that I would do anything to get that weight off. I began a diet in which I ate small amounts of protein every other day and I lived on sugarless snacks. I also bit my nails down to the quick until they bled and were infected and painful, but I couldn’t stop. I had to have something in my mouth all the time! My weight came down and I was starving. My dad did the cooking in our family of eight, and he would make big pressure-cooker-size meals. The food would be simmering when I came home from school or work and I just couldn’t resist trying some. But I wouldn’t take just a taste. I remember one day when I ate three or... Continue Reading
