A Story of Recovery:

What It Was Like

I first came to FA weighing in at 220 pounds (99.7 kilos) of fear, doubt and insecurity. I miraculously lost 90 pounds (40.8 kilos) in nine months, but I left program after one year. Before FA, I had tried many different diets. In fact, at my one of my first qualifications,  I brought in a grocery sack full of diet books and fad diets from magazines that I had tried. I also tried Atkins, Pritikin, Medical Weight Loss, LA Weight Loss, and I joined Weight Watchers two different times.

Finally, I decided I must be insulin-resistant, because no matter how hard I tried to lose, I could only gain. I felt hopeless and just submitted to the fact that I, too, would follow the path of my parents and grandparents on both sides, of obesity and diabetes.

I was a skinny kid until high school, and even then was average weight. Through my early teen years, being skinny was glamorized among movie stars and models like Twiggy, a teenaged model who was underfed and undernourished to the point of having dark circles under her eyes. Losing weight was the common focus among me and my friends. We used a popular weight-loss candy, which is a funny oxymoron, to lose weight, and sometimes we didn’t eat for days at a time. Following that, I would devour junk food. I believe this was the beginning of my problems with food. From then on, I yo-yo dieted until I was 37 years old, when the weight just began to pack on. I am 62 years old now. I continued eating junk food, eating with co-workers who also used unhealthy food in unhealthy ways to sooth and de-stress, yet I didn’t see that then.

I don’t have a lot of food obsession stories from my childhood, but baking was a favorite pastime in my family, so large quantities of sweets were always within reach. Both my family and my husband’s family exhibited some unhealthy behaviors in the ways we treated and talked about food, obsessed over food, rewarded with food, and gave and received love through food. We proved our culinary skills through competition, sometimes even forgetting the reason for gathering was to honor someone else, like a birthday or anniversary, not to honor the person who brought the decadent dessert! I used food to manage my life−which was not really managing it at all. 

My food problem was costly to me and my family. I spent lots of money on fast food and pricey restaurants, fad foods, expensive foods for recipes, food crafts with grandchildren, over spent on holiday and entertainment foods, extravagant food gifts, and lots of money on clothing, as my size kept changing up. Then at work, I overheard someone point out I was the biggest person in my workplace. This came at a time when our agency was the lead for a city-wide health and fitness initiative. Because it was a very competitive workplace, I felt browbeat by regular comments I perceived as insults about my weight. It became difficult to walk the long distance into work from the parking lot, deal with the stress and the long evenings standing on heels at mandatory events. So I quit, which in turn shorted my earning potential for our family. 

Before  joining FA , on one low day, I wrote a list of all my medical issues and everything else that was troubling me in life. That list included muscle aches, fatigue, weakness, headaches, scattered thoughts, strained voice, post nasal drip, low mobility, sore feet, knees, ankles, acid reflux, sleep apnea, trouble bending down and picking things up off floor, which also meant being uncomfortable playing on the floor with my grandchildren, and needing help to get up. My clothing bound at my inflated stomach and upper arms. I huffed, puffed and elbowed my way through life. I was short-winded, tired easily, had some chest pain, frequent colds, indigestion, sore throats, bloating and some depression. I was also on a lot of medication. Up to this point, the future looked bleak for me. I was insecure, and I began isolating and coming up with excuses not to meet with friends, or justify not doing things I once enjoyed. I realized my sickness would just increase and envisioned becoming more and more dependent on others, picturing myself in a wheelchair and an early death. I cried out to God to help! He very gently led me to see that I had made food an idol, my go-to, and my comforter. I told Him I was sorry, but didn’t know how to turn it around. Then I remembered someone at church who had lost a lot of weight and had kept it off, and so I called her. It was tough to admit to another person that food had taken center stage, but she shared the impact FA had for her and I prayed for the nerve to go.

My first meeting was a Wednesday early morning meeting. I was impressed with the friendliness of everyone and how comfortable I felt there. I was surprised at how honest and transparent people were about their addictive eating, since I just made up excuses, justified and denied mine. For the first time in years, it felt okay to hang out all over my chair and not have to hold my big belly in and hide my mid-section behind my purse or a book. In my foggy head, I listened and could identify with others and saw some answers if I followed this program. I heard the tools and thought I could probably manage one day at a time. 

To the praise of God, all of those health issues I mentioned left that first year in FA. I was able to get off all medication and stay off. My health record remains excellent. I heard many people in program talk about coming in for the vanity but gaining the sanity, but the totality of that didn’t sink in for me that first year in the program. I had been in a few AWOLs, but usually left around the fourth step, never getting to the root cause of my overeating. 

After leaving FA that first year, I continued to weigh and measure, but then we took an anniversary trip to Mexico where I dabbled in some non-abstinent food. When we returned home, my weight was up seven pounds. I couldn’t understand how! I had not eaten seven pounds of non-abstinent food, but had gained seven pounds of weight. I struggled for months to get that weight back off, but it stayed. So I justified that I was probably too thin anyway, so it was okay to stay at that weight. The justifications didn’t last. I began to justify a little bit at birthdays and a little bit a holidays, and that certainly there was no harm in a few of these little salty crunchy snacks. And then I justified a heavier weight point.

At that time, my father was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I helped my mother care for him, took him to medical appointments and took care of their errands, groceries and business. This became overwhelming, and my anxiety, in addition to my mother’s, mounted. I basically ate my way through these and my feelings of being overwhelmed with the workload I had inherited. 

Having realized that the addictive eating was just a symptom of a greater need, I came back to FA this past November, but this time, it was to put an ax to the root. I desired the spiritual help the program claimed; the weight loss was only secondary. My first challenge was turning my will over to God as I understood Him. I dug deeply into my life more honestly and thoroughly. With God’s help, I worked through a lot of baggage, for which I am very grateful. I lost the 45 pounds (20.4 kilos), not as quickly, but steadily. I came to realize many things this time around, through working the Twelve Steps. My fears were a learned response, so they could be unlearned. I learned experientially that God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control, and to not dodge or run from circumstances God has allowed to come my way, but rather to walk into those battles with confidence and peace.

I am still on a learning curve and am thankful for spiritual progress not spiritual perfection. My husband, children, grandchildren and extended family have adopted healthier eating practices because of what I have learned. I continue caring for my mother now, while continuing to manage their business. I sometimes fret over the many tasks and decisions that come my way, but I don’t turn to the food.

In our FA fellowship, we often use the acronym HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired) as a reminder of our food triggers. Mine have been more in the realm of feeling anxious, overwhelmed, frustrated, not feeling good enough, and being hyper sensitive to rejection, to name a few. As a people-pleaser I made myself a slave to perceived expectations others had of me which pushed the “perfection” envelope into the danger zone. 

Do I still get anxious, feel overwhelmed, struggle with perfectionism and feel rejected or not good enough? Oh, yes, I do! But I don’t turn to the food. I thank everyone in FA who has listened and played a part in my personal journey with God and food.