I don't know how big I was at my heaviest because I couldn't bear to see the numbers keep going up on the scales anymore. My clothes were all size LARGE (or more) and I only bought skirts with a stretch waist.
When I stopped weighing myself, I was 160 pounds (11 stone 6, and I'm short), and I knew it kept going up because my clothes - even with the stretch waists - kept getting tighter. You may have similar experiences as the ones I have had - looking in a store window, seeing my bulky reflection impossibly superimposed on those slender mannequins. I remember how awful it was to get dressed in the morning and do my daily grooming - it was impossible to pretend I wasn't fat, and the pale lumpiness of me filled me with revulsion and self-loathing. And trying to diet!
Well, OK, I'd tell myself, so I'll have the whole bag of Doritos today so it isn't in the house anymore and I'll start tomorrow. And since I'm starting all this regimentation tomorrow, I might as well clear the freezer of that ice cream too.... and so on. It wasn't as if I enjoyed all that food, either. My food bills were high, and I when I was overeating, I would either pretend I wasn't eating - 'Wow! How did I get to bottom of that bag??' - or, just hate myself for every mouthful, while eating it. The compulsion to eat combined with that self-loathing was horrible, and yet everyday I did it to myself, over and over and over, day after day after day, for years.
When I first went to Weight Watchers as a teenager, someone got up and presented. I writhed in my seat with shame and jealousy before she started to talk. She was tall, thin and blond, everything I was not. She was so slim, slimmer than I could ever hope to be (I told myself at the time), with a figure that looked liked she was one of those people who were born to be thin. And then she held up an old picture of herself, when she was, as she said, 'fat' - she had lost 88 pounds (6st 4)! And then she said something that has stayed with me ever since: "I actually didn't lose 88 pounds. I lost one pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound, until I got to the weight I am now.
The point is, I didn't lose 88 pounds all at once. It was a whole lifestyle change. And sometimes it was tedious, and it sure started hard. And at first, people didn't even notice I was losing weight. Even after 20 pounds, people were still asking if I had a haircut - I was that fat. Hard word, 'fat', isn't it. Well, I tell you, it was only when I was OK with being fat that I could start losing one pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound." I thought she was brilliantly wise for the first part and crazy for the last bit, about being OK being fat. I was deeply in the negative self talk: 'I hate this fat! I hate my body! The rolls in my stomach when I sit, my squishy, flowing-over thighs - ugh! I hate myself for keeping all this weight on!
How could it possibly be OK to be so disgusting?'
Did you ever have these conversations with yourself? Tell yourself these horrible things, that if they came from a partner or a boss or a colleague, would clearly be abusive? And it's OK to treat ourselves this way? I'm jumping a head of myself...
Well, I managed to diet myself down to a size 12, but I didn't keep all that weight off, over 4 stone, all that time. After I left my first husband, who was even more abusive to me than I had been to myself, I piled weight back on - not back to what I had before, but I definitely needed a bigger sized wardrobe again. It wasn't until I was in the UK, and I did some emotional healing, that I was able to lose all the weight I had put back on - about a stone. I didn't even see that I had really lost the weight.
It wasn't until after I had my first daughter and had lost the pregnancy weight, and I went shopping with a friend with clothes retail experience - she told me I was wearing a size too big, that I was really a size 10! Great news, partly, and also really quite sad news - sad that I was still so separate from my body that I just couldn't see me. So, there was still more work to do, and just in time, as you will see in a minute.
I had just found a new stress release technique that allowed me to dig through the layers - and I really mean going in deep - of pain, that had been tying me down to these weighty issues all these years. The sexual abuses that I thought were healed down to pebbles were still mountains, the anger I thought I had let go of was an ocean - I had a whole landscape to deal with! And I did, with this technique, called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It is a way of easily and gently stimulating acupressure points whilst holding particular thoughts or speaking out loud. I used EFT almost every day for 6 months. And eventually, I came out the other side of it. I was a lot happier, a lot more grounded, and a lot more stable in myself in all ways. I had no idea what lay ahead to test me.
Just over a year later, finally at a stable size 10, my son died. I started eating chocolate every day - a lot of it - at least, a lot of it for me (one bar of Divine or Green & Blacks a week). Even with the unspeakable challenge of my son's death, I was finally healthy enough on the inside to not turn to food for that simultaneous comfort/punishment that I had suffered in years past. I began to realize that I was missing chocolate if I hadn't had it during the day, that I was planning around eating chocolate - the signs of addiction. It was only a few months in, and I couldn't cope. My son had died, and no one was going to take my chocolate away too!
I eventually accepted the obvious, that having chocolate wasn't going to bring him back, so I started tapping again for food. It wasn't that I had gained weight - I had not - my over-indulgence was at a completely different level than it had been before, thanks to the tapping. It was just that I really believe in the middle name of EFT - Freedom. So, even with all the life pressures I have had from an early age, the absolute misery of my teenage years and the added burdens and trauma of that extra stone I carried for awhile; the death of my precious son - even though I have had all those life experiences, I no longer use food to express my inner conflicts. I can just cope with them in a loving way now, thanks to EFT.
EFT has worked so well for me, and for my clients from my private practice, that I am impassioned about sharing it with others through training. I want to reach more people with this easily learned method of coping with our darkest places and issues. And I am passionate about sharing with others that Freedom is possible, complete Emotional Freedom, and this is the best way I know how to get there. It's hard not be interested in exploring this further, is it not? That's the way I felt when I first learned about it too, and here I am, years later, passing it on. And the words of the woman who presented at my first ever Weight Watchers meeting have stayed with me too, and how wise she was in all she said - well, I want to pass that on too. You will allow me to gift you with this, yes?
