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
If not now, when? That was the question that came to mind as I sat alone facing one more “day one.” I had experienced eight months of relapse, and when I looked back, I could not recall one meaningful thing from those long months. All I had known was a constant struggle with food and weight. It was lonely and quiet in my apartment in way that was hard for me to tolerate. I was at a crossroads. I felt the cravings start to rise, and I wondered if I was really going to be dragged to the store by disease, again. “Just one more time,” is what my disease told me. At that point, I had heard that phrase and believed it hundreds of times. In pain and fear of what yet another binge would do to me, I dropped to my knees and prayed. All I could say... Continue Reading
My father was a pastor of a small church in a marina village in southwestern Ontario. Mom was an excellent cook and baker. There was a two-course breakfast every morning and dessert after every lunch and supper, often with a flour and sugar snack in the evenings, as my parents entertained church congregants and visiting missionaries. We moved to various small towns in Ontario every three years. Food was a large part of both home and church life. My dad didn’t make a lot of money. Congregants left baskets of fresh garden produce and other assorted treats on our steps. Many church meetings and events were accompanied by home-baked goodies. I would sneak sips of the communion beverage out of the bottle in the refrigerator when my parents went out and scour the cupboards and refrigerator whenever I was left on my own. When I reached babysitting age, I learned... Continue Reading
I used to love to swim in the ocean. As a child I spent many years living near the beach and was always happy to go swimming. I liked to dive into the waves, to swim far out and watch the people on the shore. I would stay out there for hours – the sense of floating, of being lifted up by the waves, of swimming with or against the current were all fun for me. As my disease progressed, I went from bingeing and dieting in my teens to gaining 30 pounds and then battling to lose the weight. I discovered bulimia and excessive exercise and spent my 20s and 30s bingeing, throwing up, running 10 miles at a time, and lifting weights for hours at the gym; the weight was managed by these drastic methods. I found FA 10 years ago, but kept breaking my abstinence, and the... Continue Reading
The slogan, “Don’t eat no matter what, no matter what, don’t eat” completely baffled me when I first came into FA, because I ate over everything. It was my go-to solution for all things in my life, good and bad. If my mind was racing at night and I couldn’t sleep, I ate to numb out. When something good happened, I celebrated with food. If something bad happened, I needed to soothe myself with food. If I procrastinated on a work project and faced a deadline, the food would help me tackle it. If a friend didn’t say hello to me and I thought she must be mad at me, I needed to eat. It didn’t matter if it was a big issue or small, the bottom line was that my answer was food. This meant that I was a 30-year-old woman with food hidden in my dresser drawers, stashed... Continue Reading
