I’m here to tell my story. I’m a little nervous, but it begins when I was young, so that’s where I’ll start.
I’m 58 years old now. I came into this program when I was 47. I’m five-foot-three, and today I weigh 115 pounds. My highest weight was 181 — a number I only saw once.
As a child, I didn’t gain a lot of weight. My story wasn’t one of constant food addiction when I was growing up. Part of that was because I sucked my thumb and chewed my fingernails — my oral fixations went elsewhere — and part was that the foods I wanted weren’t in the house. We had normal family meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I wasn’t that interested in them.
What I did have, even as a very young child, was the fear, doubt, and insecurity people talk about in this program. And I had body obsession before I even knew what that meant.
I remember being five years old and noticing how another little girl’s dress fit perfectly at the waist and flared out over her petticoat. Her legs looked “perfect.” In second grade, I admired another girl’s uniform — how flat her pleats fell, how her stomach went in instead of out. I can still picture it.
All through grammar school and high school, I compared myself to others — their legs, their stomachs, their cheerleader uniforms. I wanted that flat, concave stomach, that “perfect” look. I didn’t necessarily want to be nice or smart like some of my friends; I wanted to be skinny. That’s how I know my disease started early — my thinking was already distorted.
When I was in high school, my father became ill. By my first year of college, he was diagnosed with cancer in April and died in June. I was 19, and it was a shock. I cried uncontrollably when I saw his casket. The next day, my mother quietly told me, “Maybe don’t cry so much at the funeral.”
She wasn’t being cruel — she was worried about appearances. That was something I learned at home: always look good on the outside. Our hair, our clothes, our house, our cars — everything was spotless. We presented ourselves as the perfect family. My mother didn’t intend it, but I took that lesson deep inside and turned it into obsession.
After my father died, I started to eat differently. I can’t say I became a food addict then — for me, it was a slow, progressive disease.
When I went away to college, I had a roommate with a “perfect figure.” She taught me that ideal legs had little diamond-shaped gaps between them when you stood with your knees together. We chased that ideal together — exercising, eating “right.” I gained twenty pounds doing it. I went from 120 to 144. That’s when I joined my first paid weight-loss program. I lost weight and got down to 130. I didn’t know it then, but I was already chasing control.
In high school, Twiggy was my idol. People said she looked too thin — I thought she looked perfect. I wanted those long legs, long arms, and flat stomach. I knew I could never be her, but I never stopped wanting to.
As life went on — marriage, kids, responsibilities — the weight slowly crept up. I didn’t like regular food; I ate meals only as a gateway to dessert. I tried to keep up with other parents, to look successful. We put our kids in expensive preschools to fit in, even when we couldn’t really afford it. My life revolved around how it looked on the outside — my hair, my house, my clothes, my kids, my car.
Inside, I was crumbling. I always compared myself and came up short.
Every morning, I’d start fresh with good intentions: Today I’ll eat right. By afternoon, the voices in my head would start: You’ve been busy all day, you deserve something. You skipped lunch. You need to eat.
There was a fast-food place I drove by every day to pick up my kids. I’d say, Don’t go in, don’t go in, and then I’d be in the drive-through, ordering two meals and two drinks to make it look like I was buying for someone else. The cashier knew me. When he said, “The usual?” I snapped at him out of shame.
By then, I weighed around 160. I told myself it was okay because I exercised — walked, played tennis, jogged — but I hated every minute of it. I tried diet pills, even when they were pulled from the shelves for being unsafe. I stocked up because I was terrified of gaining more weight.
Still, the weight climbed. I did all the things addicts describe: threw food out, then dug it back out. I’d buy ingredients “to bake for later,” then eat them raw because I couldn’t wait. I’d tell myself, Finish it tonight so you can start the diet tomorrow. I couldn’t keep snack food in the house.
Eventually, I hit 180 pounds. I lost the weight again on another program — down to 130 — but within a year I was back up to 150.
Then one day, at a bookstore, a man I didn’t recognize told me he’d lost 100 pounds and handed me a flyer. He invited me to a meeting. It was free, so I figured I had nothing to lose. That Friday night, I went.
There were only 13 people in the room, and I thought, These aren’t my people. They didn’t look like the glamorous, “together” people I was used to chasing. But they were thin. And when they spoke, they told my story.
That night I got a sponsor. I cried through most of those early months. I hadn’t realized how broken I was. I didn’t understand this program yet. I was embarrassed to stand up and say, “I’m a food addict.” But I wanted what they had.
At first, I came for the body. I wanted to be thin like them. Then I started hearing people talk about something deeper — about relationships getting better, about peace, about hope. That’s what kept me coming back.
Five years into the program, my life was going well. My kids liked me again. I felt great in my body. But my marriage was still struggling. One night, my husband told me he wasn’t happy and thought we should split up. I was shocked.
I called my sponsor, crying, and she asked, “Do you want to be married to him?” The truth was, I did. I had known from the beginning that God had brought us together. But I had changed — I’d gotten recovery, and he hadn’t, and I was arrogant about it.
My sponsor reminded me: You’re the one with the program. You’re the one who has to change — not to save your marriage, but because you need to become who God wants you to be.
So I worked on myself. I stopped blaming, stopped pointing out his flaws, and started asking my sponsor, “What was my part?” Slowly, things began to change. I learned to be respectful — to treat my husband the way I treated others in program.
It wasn’t quick, but it worked. Six years ago, we started over. We even downsized — something I fought hard against at first. But with my sponsor’s help, I accepted it. A few months ago, my husband put his arm around me and said, “I love you so much. I’m so glad we did this.”
He never saw all the tears it took to get there, but it was worth it.
When I first came in, I heard people say, “Don’t eat, no matter what.” Over the years, that’s meant:
Don’t eat when your kids are in trouble.
Don’t eat when someone dies.
Don’t eat when you’re proud of yourself.
No matter what — don’t eat.
Because whatever happens, it gets better.
I also learned that a grateful heart doesn’t eat.Gratitude didn’t come naturally to me. At first, I had to list things out loud: five fingers, five toes, the sunshine, food in the fridge, a place to live. Over time, that gratitude deepened — for my sponsor, for my relationships, even for the long drives to care for my mom before she passed. Gratitude changed my perspective.
My kids are grown now, and we have good relationships. My daughter says she’s grateful for me, that I’m “different” from other moms she knows. That means everything. She brings me things to talk about that she never would have before. She’s no longer afraid of me — and neither is anyone else.
I still care about how things look — my home, my hair, my clothes — but they don’t define me anymore. I can leave the house in a ponytail and baseball cap. Years ago, I couldn’t have gone camping because I couldn’t go without my hairdryer. Now I can laugh about that.
These days, my husband and I are taking dance lessons together. We tried years ago, and I was too embarrassed to let him lead. Now, when the instructor says, “Follow him wherever he goes,” I laugh — because it’s taken me thirty years to learn that lesson.
I can look in the mirror, dance in front of a wall of glass, and not feel ashamed. I can let my husband lead, and when we mess up, we just laugh. That’s freedom.
That’s why I’m in this program — not just to have a body I like, but to have relationships that feel real and loving. I don’t want to live angry anymore. I want to be a happy person who doesn’t hurt people.
Today, I still weigh and measure my food, just as I always have. I don’t have an eating problem — I have an addiction, and it needs daily attention. My family has learned to live with that, and so have I.
Most of all, I’m grateful. Truly grateful. Because a grateful heart doesn’t eat.