Thanks for inviting me in :-)

[Guest guest]

I'm new here and got the email suggesting I write an intro, so here you

are.

I have fought my weight all of my life. At various times, I've lost

80-100 pounds. I don't think I've ever really had a day when I wasn't

(a) starting a diet, ( bemoaning the fact I'd just blown the diet I

was on, © having the Last Supper in preparation for the diet I'd be

starting tomorrow, and (d) berating myself for my weakness, my inability

to give up something as simple as food, for doing this over and over and

over and over.

I have described myself as a food addict, have practiced bulimia for

years, have restricted in such extreme ways it would have qualified as

borderline anorexic if I hadn't been so overweight. I've done OA over

and over, especially HOW and grey sheet. Diet pills, of course, and all

of the rest of the things we do to try to fix this problem which I am

coming to believe started with that first diet.

Five years ago my husband became very sick and nearly died. He was very

ill for two years and I ate at my feelings and at the exhaustion that

plagued me as the result of working full time, caring for him, and

starting a business to pay for all of the medical bills.

When I woke up from that experience, I had gained almost 100 pounds and

I was heavy to start with. I could barely walk, was in constant pain,

high blood pressure, skippy heartbeat, felt absolutely horrible. It was

finally not about appearance, but more about saving my life.

I got into a liquid diet program and dropped 120 pounds. I needed that

intervention, but here we go again. Two years out, I'm up 55 or 60

pounds and see no end to the regain unless I do something completely

different. I still work out, I still feel really good compared to how I

was, but I've lost a kind of hope that I had when I first lost that

weight.

I thought I was through with emotional eating, with eating for the wrong

reasons. I thought it was, finally, just a matter of getting the weight

off, then I'd be okay. It is so clearly not okay. My obsession with

dieting and eating and restricting and losing and gaining is as extreme

as ever, if not more so.

I am here because I am just completely sick of this cycle and there has

to be a way out. I don't believe I was born this messed up re food. I

think I started the cycle when I began that first diet ~ one I really

didn't even need, but came out of a lot of focus on looking " just right "

in the family social set.

I've been doing this for a little over a week. Just in the last day or

two, I've given up the scale and writing down my food. I had planned to

weigh every day and write my food down, but I see that's just continuing

the cycle. I am not sure I can never go a day without spotchecking the

food. We'll see. I'm asking for help with the higher power I met in AA

and OA and trying to do this one day at a time.

That sounds like it's an ordeal when the fact is I feel as relieved and

content about this as I've ever felt about anything. With only a week

in, I've already had huge blocks of time (huge = hours, 3-4 or so) when

I haven't even thought about food. THAT is a miracle, unheard of. The

whole process of paying attention to my body is amazing. I don't think

I've listened to my body's signals re food in decades.

I am very hopeful and trying not to get too hopeful, if you know what I

mean. I believe this can work. It is, at least, something I've never

tried. Even if I never lost a pound, to be free of the insanity of the

obsession would be such a relief. Moments this week, I've been there.

Happy to be here. Thanks for listening ~ lynette