Summer. Season of fun, right? At a little over 5’3″ tall and at least 170 pounds, summer fun was not as simple as all that. There was always the question of what to wear, for instance. In New England, summers are hot and sticky. If I decided to dress appropriately for the weather, I had to endure the pain of my thighs rubbing together, or walk like a penguin to keep them apart. If I couldn’t face the pain or the penguin walk, I had to decide between my black jeans, my dark blue jeans, or my dark green jeans. No matter what I chose to wear from the waist down, I always wore the same huge, black, tattered T-shirt that made me feel thin as it billowed around me. Swimming was its own story, of course. To wear a bathing suit or not? I lived in an area where... Continue Reading
Thanks to this wonderful program, I spent this past summer in a bikini, traveling to Mexico with a fellow. We danced on top of a boat to oldies and pumpin’ music. We hung out in our bikinis all day long, every day. It was hot and muggy and I was loving it, because parts of my body that used to chafe in the heat no longer touch. You see, when I was a teenager, my dad took me to Greece every summer. Huge blessing! I had amazing summers in Greece. We would walk and walk, visiting the ancient sights of the Oracle at Delphi or the ancient theater of Epidauros. We’d stroll all evening amongst the whitewashed buildings and marble streets. It was heaven. What my dad doesn’t know is that I had to have my plus-size aunt buy me cotton biker-shorts underwear, made for overweight people, to wear under... Continue Reading
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
