When I first joined FA, I was desperate. I was 5’6 ½” and weighed 228 pounds. I had a seven-year-old daughter whom I couldn’t play with. I couldn’t get down on the floor and do things with her because I couldn’t get back up. I was absolutely miserable and was franticly trying to find any form of help. I was a little familiar with the FA program. My mother-in-law had been in FA for seven years or so. I saw how the weight just fell off her. I watched how and what she ate, and I had no interest. I remember thinking, “I don’t want to eat just that.” In my desperation I called her and asked her if she knew any bariatric surgeons that she could recommend to me. When she asked me why, I told her. I just knew that would be the solution to all my problems.... Continue Reading
Like so many people who come into the FA program, I had been in several weight-loss programs. Like others, I came into FA to lose weight. I was pretty successful at losing weight in those other programs, and I don’t want to put them down; they work just fine for others. However, the important thing for me is that this program helps me keep the weight off; the other programs didn’t do that for me. I have lost enough pounds to bring me to a healthy weight, which I have maintained for over a year and half. In FA, I have gained a deeper spiritual connection to my inner self and a better connection to my emotional self. I now know that when I want to eat in my former unhealthy, addictive way, it’s because I want to avoid feeling something. Thus, when I don’t eat to avoid feeling something,... Continue Reading
I have been a member of Food Addicts in Recovery in Melbourne, Australia for two years now. I weighed 260 pounds when I came into Program, and have been as much as 285 in the past. I had a relapse last year that took seven months to get through. I am 61 years old and have now been contentedly abstinent for nine months. I believe I have been a food addict from about age 4 or 5. The behaviours started early: stealing food, hiding food, eating in secret, stealing money from mom’s purse to buy sweets, making slices even so nobody could tell some was eaten, stuffing wrappers inside something else before depositing it in the garbage so I wouldn’t be sprung. One of the startling things that I have learned about myself in this beautiful Program is the level of dishonesty that had become part of my way of being.... Continue Reading
My life had become so small. I wasn’t married, had no children, and lived with my sister. After many years of living with depression and fibromyalgia, my life had been reduced to reading, sleeping, watching TV, and of course, eating—eating for every emotional reason available: good, bad, and indifferent. I was a slug. I was tired of being me…bored, boring, and fat, I talked my sister into going to an FA meeting with me. I didn’t know anything about FA except that it was a Twelve-Step program that incorporated a “Higher Power.” My sister said it might be a no sugar and no flour program, but I was mostly concerned about the Higher Power part. I have had a love-hate relationship with Christianity since my mother crammed my childhood full of fundamental church beliefs. But my sister and I were both looking for a change in our lackluster lifestyle, if... Continue Reading
Since my early teens, I’ve slept poorly. I rarely had trouble falling asleep, but I’d wake up too early, my brain in gear and unable to disconnect. Unable to fall back to sleep, I’d reluctantly get up and start my day after four-to-six hours in bed, always feeling sleep-deprived. I started working the FA program over three years ago. I was 204 pounds and ate all the time. By committing to the FA food plan and doing all of my tools daily, I am enjoying a 70-pound weight loss and have embraced a way of life for which I am truly grateful. I hoped that by working the FA program I’d be relieved of this affliction, as if the Promises from the AA Big Book had a hidden clause just for me. When I continued to wake up early, (actually waking up even earlier so I could do my quiet... Continue Reading
