About Me and My Un-Healthy Eating History

Hi, I'm Lynn.

This page is about me and my struggles with healthy eating. It outlines my food history so that as you browse the website you can be confident that I can relate to what you're experiencing. I have definitely "been there, done that".

For as long as I can remember, I have been at war with my body. When I was 10 my nightly prayers included a request to wake up skinny. Needless to say, it never happened.

My earliest recollection of a diet doctor and a diet pill was when I was 11. At 12 I joined Weight Watchers for the first time.

High school was peppered with all of the popular diet plans of the '60's, including fasting, the Mayo clinic diet and a liquid only diet, and once I could drive I was a regular at the diet doctor for those little pastel pills.

I lost the same 30-40 pounds about 30-40 times because, as you all know, as soon as you stop taking the pills, the weight returns. I remember girdles and long lined bras and other support undergarments.

The idea of eating healthy never crossed my mind. It was all about the weight.

In my twenties I had my jaws wired and I still remember my mother showing up at my office with the largest available bottle of Geritol. I think she believed the Geritol would compensate of my lack of healthy eating and help to maintain my health through this drastic procedure.

One night when my husband and young daughter were eating hot dogs and beans and I couldn't stand it anymore I went berserk and demanded that he remove the wires. He made his last snip as I lay on the kitchen floor trying to hold my mouth open wide enough so that nothing but the wires would get snipped.

I was hypnotized, individually and with a group. After one of the sessions where the post hypnotic suggestion was to chew each bite 50 times, I had lunch with my mom and ordered a mushroom burger. It took about 90 minutes for her to admit that watching me chew each thin sliver of mushroom was driving her crazy.

I did a stint at the Schick center (aversion therapy) was a member of TOPS (Take off Pounds Sensibly, another one of the very popular diet plans of the day) and joined some group where those who didn't lose weight that week had to take their place in an imaginary pig pen.

Each of these non-successes would invite a round of Weight Watchers and a round of diet pills.

I yoyo'd through my twenties and early thirties and after a divorce at 35, I had had enough. I committed myself to Weight Watchers yet again and lost 116 pounds. I am now a "lifetime member".

I even became a meeting leader and for two years I paraded my before and after pictures at meetings, only to head for the nearest drive thru on the way home and wolf down a huge meal and dessert.

I managed to maintain my weight for a few years by bingeing and then starving but eventually even that lost its effectiveness and the pounds climbed on again.

At this point I had abandoned most of the drastic measures that had characterized my earlier years. I recognized that they were not the answer because the weight (and then some) would always return when the drastic measures were abandoned.

Food continued to be the prevailing focus of my life and while I wasn't using drastic measures I was "dieting" or at least trying to.

At 50-55 I lost the same 50 lbs each year for five consecutive years and decided to forget the whole thing because I knew it couldn't be good for me to go up and down like that, especially now that I wasn't young any more.

Even though I tried to convince myself that I had thrown in the towel, I was still consumed with thoughts of food, I read cookbooks all of the time and my favorite TV station was the food channel. My body might not have been following a diet, but my brain did not give me a moment's peace. It was crazy making.

Finally, two years ago, a light bulb went on and I realized that I would only be successful if I approached my body with an attitude of love and acceptance. I just decided to accept myself as I am and treat myself well. That led me to water aerobics, an activity that I truly love.

As a matter of fact, I am now studying to become a certified water aerobics instructor. I test in a few weeks.

Update: As of October, 2010 I am an AEA certified aquatics fitness professional teaching Aquafit classes at the YMCA. I remain convinced that there is some form of physical activity for each of us to love.

Before I discovered water, I had approached exercise as a punishment. It is no surprise that I was never faithful to an exercise program.

Once the exercise was in place, I decided to do something else good for my body and I started a program of healthy eating. By approaching eating healthy foods as something good that I am doing for my body, I have been losing weight slowly and steadily and most of the chatter in my head has dissipated.

It's amazing how good your body feels when you eat healthy foods.

It is still an uphill climb for me, because I have only two years of healthy eating habits under my belt versus many years of overeating and bingeing behavior, and I sometimes worry that I'll revert back to my old ways.

I am very optimistic because now that I eat healthy my body is not constantly screaming at me to feed it sugar. I know that if I simply continue to choose to approach my body with an attitude of acceptance I will continue to be successful.

I wanted to build this site to share with you that success is not defined by the scale or your body size. For me, success is the freedom to eat without guilt, to go to the pool to work out because I love it so much, and the freedom to live without obsessive thoughts about food.

I invite you to browse the site for topics that interest you and let me know personally if there is anything you would like to see added to the site.

Remember the words of Julia Child,

"Life itself is the proper binge".

Lynn

How do You Handle Your Eating?

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