I don’t know how big I was when I was heavier because I couldn’t bear to see the numbers keep going up on the scale. My clothes were all sizes LARGE (or larger) and I only bought skirts with an elasticated waist. When I stopped weighing myself, I was 160 pounds (11 stone 6, and I’m short), and I knew I was still going up because my clothes, even with the elastic waistbands, still fit. You may have experiences similar to what I’ve had: looking in a store window, seeing my bulky reflection impossibly superimposed on those svelte mannequins. I remember how horrible it was to get dressed in the morning and get ready every day: it was impossible to pretend that I wasn’t fat, and my pale bumps filled me with disgust and self-loathing. And trying to diet!
Well, okay, I said to myself, so today I’ll have the whole bag of Doritos so that I won’t be in the house anymore and I’ll start tomorrow. And since I’m going to start all this regulation tomorrow, I might as well clear the freezer of that ice cream… and so on. It wasn’t like he enjoyed all that food, either. My food bills were high, and when I overeat, I’d pretend like I wasn’t eating: ‘Wow! How did I get to the bottom of that bag? – or I just hate myself for every bite, as I eat it. The compulsion to eat combined with that self-loathing was horrible, and yet I did it to myself every day, over and over again, day after day, for years.
When I first went to Weight Watchers as a teenager, someone got up and introduced me. I squirmed in my seat with embarrassment and jealousy before she started to speak. She was tall and slim and blonde, everything I wasn’t. She was so thin, thinner than I could ever hope to be (I told myself at the time), with a figure that looked like one of those people who were born to be thin. And then she showed an old photo of herself, when she was, as she put it, ‘fat’: she had lost 88 pounds (6.4)! And then he said something that has stayed with me ever since: “Actually, I didn’t lose 88 pounds. I lost a pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound, then another pound, until I got to weight.” what i have now
The point is, I didn’t lose 88 pounds in one sitting. It was quite a lifestyle change. And sometimes it was tedious, and it sure started hard. And at first, people didn’t even notice that they were losing weight. Even after 20 pounds, people still asked me if I had cut my hair, that’s how fat I was. Hard word, ‘fat’, right? Well, I tell you, it was only when I was okay with being fat that I could start to lose a 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 part, about being okay being fat. I was deep in negative self-talk: ‘I hate this fat! I hate my body! The rolls in my stomach when I sit down, my thighs soft and flowy – ugh I hate myself for keeping all this weight on How could it be okay to be so disgusting?
Have you ever had these conversations with yourself? Tell yourself these horrible things, that if it came from a coworker or a boss or a colleague, would it be clearly abusive? And is it okay for us to treat each other like this? I’m jumping a head off myself…
Well, I did manage to diet down to a size 12, but I didn’t keep all that weight off, more than 4 stone, all that time. After leaving my first husband, who was even more abusive to me than I was to myself, I gained weight again, not like before, but I definitely needed a bigger wardrobe again. It wasn’t until I was in the UK, and did some emotional healing, that I was able to lose all the weight I had regained, give or take a stone. I didn’t even realize that I had actually lost weight.
It wasn’t until after I had my first daughter and lost the pregnancy weight, and went shopping with a friend with experience in clothing sales: she told me I was wearing a size too big, which was actually a size 10! Good news, in part, and some pretty sad news, too, sad that I was still so detached from my body that I simply couldn’t see myself. So, there was still more work to be done, and just in time, as you’ll 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 deep down, of pain that had been tying me to these major issues for all these years. The sexual abuse that I thought had been healed to pebbles was still mountains, the anger that I thought I had let go was an ocean – I had a whole landscape to deal with! And I did, with this technique, called the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It is an easy and gentle way to stimulate acupressure points while holding particular thoughts or speaking out loud. I used EFT almost every day for 6 months. And finally, I came out the other side. I was much happier, much more grounded, and much more stable with myself in every way. I had no idea what was in store for me to test myself.
A little over a year later, finally at a stable size 10, my son died. I started eating chocolate every day, a lot, at least a lot for me (one Divine or Green & Blacks bar a week). Even with the indescribable challenge of my son’s death, I was finally healthy enough on the inside not to turn to food for that simultaneous solace/punishment I had endured in years past. I started to realize that I was missing out on chocolate if I hadn’t had it during the day, that I was planning to eat 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 eating chocolate would not bring it back, so I started tapping again for food. It wasn’t that I had gained weight, I hadn’t, my overindulgence was on a whole different level than it had been before, thanks to the tapping. It’s just that I really believe in the middle name of EFT – Freedom. So even with all the pressures of life I’ve had from a young age, the utter misery of my teenage years, and the added burdens and traumas of that extra stone I carried around for a while; the death of my precious son – despite the fact that I have had all those life experiences, I no longer use food to express my internal conflicts. Now I can deal with them in a loving way, thanks to EFT.
EFT has worked so well for me and my clients in my private practice that I am passionate about sharing it with others through training. I want to reach more people with this easy-to-learn method of dealing with our darkest places and problems. And I’m passionate about sharing with others that Freedom is possible, complete Emotional Freedom, and this is the best way I know of to get there. It’s hard not to be interested in exploring this further, isn’t it? That’s the way I felt when I first learned about it, and here I am, years later, passing it on. And the words of the woman that she introduced at my first Weight Watchers meeting also stayed with me, and how wise she was in everything she said, well, I want to convey that as well. You will allow me to give you this, yes?
