Facing the Truth

For many years, I believed the lies I told myself about my weight. I thought, It’s my fate. My mother and grandmother were overweight. Or, Since my husband met me when I was 100 pounds overweight and married me, my weight doesn’t matter.

No one criticized me openly, at least not since junior high school, but deep inside, I always knew that what I told myself were lies. I was ashamed of my body. Clothes shopping was a nightmare. I thought dressing room mirrors were unkind and photographs were a distortion of the real me. It wasn’t the person I knew I was inside. But dressing room mirrors are true reflections and photos cannot lie.

Occasionally, the shame drove me to attempt diets. With some of these, I was able to lose a significant amount of weight—60 pounds with a vegetarian diet, 60 pounds with a no-carb diet, 40 pounds with a sensible “Christian-based” diet, and 50 pounds with a commercial diet. Each time, unable to stay with it, I would gain the weight back and more.

In early 2018, a friend told me about FA. I watched the weight just melt off her. But when she told me that the program encouraged going to three meetings a week and calling a sponsor and other fellows every day, I thought that was too much for me.

I was unwilling to even give it a try. After all, there were still other diets out there I hadn’t yet tried. In truth, I was looking for an instant, easy fix. I even considered bariatric surgery, but as a nurse, I saw that many people gained the weight back. Although it does work for some people, I wasn’t willing to risk it. The other diets I tried worked for some people as well. I started to wonder what was wrong with me that I can’t sustain weight loss?

It wasn’t until age 65 that I identified my addiction to flour and sugar. It may sound funny, but I felt relief knowing that was my issue. Addiction is a disease. Diseases can be treated. Addiction, like many diseases, can’t be cured. But since I finally understood that my compulsive eating and obsession with food was an addiction more powerful than I am, I was able to let go of that terrible guilt and self-judgment.

In October 2019, I went with my friend to my first FA meeting. I got a sponsor that night and started working the program. Even then I wasn’t fully committed. My plan was to just try it. I did everything I was told to do, even when I disagreed with it. If something didn’t make sense to me, I thought that, when I lost the weight, I wouldn’t do it anymore.

Weight fell off quickly. I began to lose that sense of desperation that brought me into FA. I began to question if my life was really that unmanageable, if I was really an addict. Then on day 60 of the program, I broke my abstinence and ate food with sugar. It was unintentional at first, but when I realized what I had done, I decided that I would have all the food I had been missing for two months. I binged all night on sugar. I admitted it to my sponsor and resolved to start again the next day. Old habits die hard.

I did start over the next day. My body rejected all that sugar, and I was miserably ill for the next 24 hours. That should have been enough, but a few weeks later, around Christmas, I broke again.

I hated telling my sponsor as well as my friend who brought me into the program, but they did not judge and helped me get started again.

For the next three months, I remained outwardly compliant, but I questioned a lot of things.

Then my view started to change. If something didn’t make sense to me, I decided it wasn’t important enough to dwell on. I began to let go and accept the things I could not change. I wanted to change the program, but instead the program changed me. I recently watched a speaker who said, “It is easier to commit 100% than to commit 98%.”

I realized that the two percent I held back was like the leavening in flour. It grows, leading to more and more questions and more and more doubt. Eventually, I made the decision to surrender completely, and a burden was lifted. Being willing was easier.

That doesn’t mean that my addiction is gone. But just for today, I have a plan without regrets or second guesses. I recognize the lies as lies. And today I feel at peace with myself.