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So many of us struggled to keep our weight down. My own struggle began about the time I began to notice boys. I had always been overweight for my size and height. But suddenly, I knew that I was unattractive. I really wanted to be liked, to be noticed, to do well in all situations. But every time I looked in the mirror I was looking at a body that did not mesh with my dreams. Somehow, I contracted the family genes on my father's side that led to being overweight. My two sisters and one brother were built much like my mother. I, on the other hand, resembled my maternal grandmother and her siblings. All my great aunts and uncles were large people. For years I struggled with diet after diet. Yes, I lost weight but couldn't sustain the effort. When I quit, I gained all the weight I lost plus an additional five to ten pounds. During my high school and college years, I tried around 20 diets, well, truth be told, I did the second round on four or five of them. Figuring an average rebound weight gain of 7.5 pounds, from the time I started dieting to the time I stopped in my mid-20s, I was 150 pounds heavier than when I began. Yes, I weighed over 250 pounds. I walked around in constant fear of being noticed. I hated myself, blamed myself for having no self-control, and hid out in my apartment watching TV at night. I was truly living a terrible life. I had all but given up hope when I saw a documentary on TV about problems with the American diet. The documentary talked about processed food contributing to starvation because if processed food was the mainstay of our diet we were getting severely under-nourished. It also talked about the natural diet that humans evolved to eat. It is an omnivore's diet consisting of meats and plants. But the biggest surprise for me was that the claim was made that the fast food and big food industry was deliberately packing what passed for food with trigger chemicals to get us coming back. Ever wonder why no one can eat just one potato chip or one pretzel? Chemistry entered the food marketplace at about the same time as serious, life-threatening disease was beginning to climb. It is funny how things tend to mesh. A week later I was in my doctor's office for a routine physical. My doctor was deeply concerned about my weight. She went so far as to tell me that if I didn't lose weight I would be taking years off my life. I already had high blood pressure, dangerously high triglycerides, and sleep apnea. I wasn't even thirty years old. My depression took hold. I started to sob. She put her arm around my shoulder. "Sara," she was nearly whispering, "it is not your fault. You are not to blame at all." She began to drone on about exactly the same things I heard in the documentary a week earlier. As I regained some control, she said, "Sara, I've known you for a while. I know how excited you get when you go on a diet and lose weight. But then you gain it all back and then some. If you are willing, I would like you to join me with a group of women who need to learn how to eat like a human being. Would you want to do that? "When can I start," I was suddenly excited. "Tonight, we meet in a church basement. Here's the address. Be there at 7:00 and be sure to be hungry. There will be a lot of food there," she smiled sensing my utter amazement that food would be present in a group that was to lose weight. I learned as a child if you are not somewhere ten-minutes early, you are late. As my training demanded, I arrived at around 6:50. I walked into the basement room and there were tables of food. There was more colorful food than I had seen in years. Mostly vegetables but there were some animal proteins, fish mainly. On a table were bottles of oils, butter, eggs, and dairy. If I hadn't seen Dr. Miller at the edge of the room talking to someone, I would have thought I was in the wrong place. That night my journey toward a healthy life began in earnest. Over the next few years, I learned ways of shopping that kept me to the edge of the supermarket, although I did walk the aisles for exercise. I learned to eat well, to relish foods and I lost weight and kept it off. Today my weight holds steady at plus or minus five pounds of 130 pounds. I am no longer ashamed, depressed or angry. I don't blame myself but I do blame the food giants for their only goal is profits and they could care less about the harm they do to so many people. I thought it important to share my story, or at least a part of it, with you today. My life changed because of the convergence of Hollywood and medicine. Today, I actively resist the food giants, big Agra, and the fast food industries as they rape the American people and the world at large so that the rich may get richer. I work with people, women, and men, to give up their addiction to food like substances; to start eating like we evolved to eat. Perhaps through this blog, I may point you in the right direction as well. -------------------- Sara Dawson is the managing partner at The Science of Permanent Weight Loss. Her personal journey going from ‘chubby’ and unhealthy to thin and healthy is one that anyone who suffers from being overweight or in poor health, or both should know. Sara encourages you to visit her Weight Loss Blog where she shares her story along with tips and ideas for healthy weight loss.
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