I had spent so much effort trying to lose weight while still trying to eat my way. One door after another had closed to me, and I was definitely at my end. When I came into FA, I was told that FA was “the last house on the block.” It was true. There was really only one question to ask myself: If this is the last house on the block, why would I want to be homeless? Why not just pay attention to the landlady, my sponsor, and move in? I like this new address, my excess weight is gone, and the extreme home makeover going on is my reason to stay.
At my first FA meeting, I was greeted by a woman who told me that she had lost 40 pounds. My ears perked up. Then the room began to fill with thin women. But I was confused. I thought that this might be a meeting for thin women who considered “overweight” to be an extra 10 to 15 pounds. I stayed because I figured I could learn something from people who were thin. The meeting began. Then I heard, in the format, the part about completely abstaining from flour and sugar. Right then I lost all hope. This, I thought, was impossible. What was there to eat besides flour and sugar products? At the break, a woman approached me and showed me her picture. She was once over 300 pounds! I regained my sense of hope, but I just didn’t think I could go without flour and sugar. I left... Continue Reading
Like most people, I always thought I was very different. Unlike other families in my white, suburban world, my father was an alcoholic and didn’t live with us; my mother was the breadwinner. We moved frequently, following her academic career, and lived in school-owned properties rather than in a home of our own. My sisters and I stopped attending public school after eighth grade and spent our high school years living in dormitories, surrounded by Vanderbilts, Duponts, and Rockefellers, girls from lower Connecticut, and from the western suburbs of Boston. In spite of our well-endowed education, we had little money. Our mother became influential in the world of private schools and colleges and a national advocate for girls. We were raised with high expectations of our lives as women, in the midst of her adoring students and colleagues. I was always conscious of the need to perform, to measure up... Continue Reading
Before I was abstinent, the idea of ever getting free from food was as impossible and unlikely as hitching a ride to the moon. I was never very interested in food as a child, but got the idea that I was fat and ugly and should get thinner. So as a teen, I got into starving myself. This progressed to starving and bingeing, then dieting and bingeing, then being unable to diet or control my eating by the time I was 25. Whatever I was doing with food, whether I was under 100 pounds or more than 300 pounds, my thoughts were never far from the obsession about it. FA broke the obsession. I handed my food over to the scales and a sponsor. I fought the FA Program for 10 years. I got abstinent a few times for a few years, and twice lost a large amount of weight... Continue Reading
The Just for Today card suggested that I exercise my soul, stop procrastinating, keep my mouth shut when my feelings were hurt, do nice things for people, and do things I didn’t want to do. My body Shortly before I walked into my first meeting, I was experiencing knee problems so severe that I could not take one pain-free step. Having 221 pounds on a 5’2” frame contributed dramatically to that pain. Doctors didn’t come right out and say it, but I didn’t have to be told. I had arthritis, I was getting older (56 at the time), and I was overweight. I knew I would have to find a way to manage the pain. But God found another way for me. He gave me a visual of a woman my age jogging toward me, and a woman my age in a motorized wheelchair crossing her path. The choice was... Continue Reading
