Discover How AmondaRose Overcame Her Challenges with Weight and Eating
Oh my God, I’m so fat and ugly–physically undesirable and imperfect in every possible way!
I belittle myself with this kind of negative dialogue every single day, every time I look in the mirror. I find numerous reasons to dislike my body, and my constant inner critic barrages me with self-critical and self-defeating statements.
I really believe that if I can control how I look on the outside, I’ll feel better about myself on the inside–that everything in my life will suddenly become perfect. When it comes to eating and my relationship to my body, how the heck did my life spiral so out of control?
Before I can get a handle on these self-defeating behaviors, I find myself literally at a place where I don’t care if I live or die…
“Before You Find Out Who You Are, You Have To
Figure Out Who You Aren’t…” ~ Iyanla Vanzant
A chubby kid, my mother repeatedly makes negative comments about my eating and my weight, and I’m picked on by my peers. My issues begin here, but the reality is that I spiral out of control initially at age fourteen when I start my first diet. Finally, I experience life as a thin person!
It feels so good to control the amount of food I eat. For the first time in my life I actually love the way I look! It doesn’t take long for me to became emotionally hooked on what it feels like to be thin–so much so that I can’t stop losing weight. Eventually I have to quit my weight loss program because they tell me I’m getting too thin. In my mind, the thinner the better…
Soon, what was supposed to be a simple, balanced diet turns into a vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting. I gain and lose weight over and over again during my high school years. Whenever I embark on another diet, I become even more obsessed with my weight and my eating. Soon a totally destructive eating disorder starts to grab hold of me.
By the time I’m in college, my behavior is extreme. Going on and off numerous diets over the years leads me to full blown bulimia, anorexic tendencies, laxative abuse, and extreme compulsive exercising. My food and body issues start to take a serious turn for the worse.
Every time I overeat or gain weight, I beat myself up emotionally for being weak-willed and out of control. This only leads to purging–a very dangerous and crazy behavior. Like an addict who craves a drug, my drug of choice is food, and always I end up trying to cleanse my body of the “drug” I just abused.
Eventually, I begin to purge most of my meals. I take up to sixty laxatives at a time in an attempt to get rid of the food I just ate. My behavior is certainly life threatening, and intellectually I know I can die from it. However, I don’t care! My self-esteem is so low that I believe my life has no value, so what difference does it make?
I want to believe that my crazy out of control behavior around food and my weight is a result of mental weakness and lack of willpower, but I begin to realize it’s much deeper than that. No longer impacting just me, my situation begins to affect other people in my life as well.
“Out of Difficulties Grow Miracles.” ~ Jean de La BruyÃre
Newly married to the man of my dreams at the age of thirty, I begin to see clearly how my behavior impacts our relationship in a big way. Tony and I are supposed to be enjoying our honeymoon in the beautiful Caribbean, and I’m obsessed with my weight and every bite of food I put into my mouth.
While other newlyweds are taking pleasure in the breathtaking views and romantic locations, I find it impossible to enjoy this special time with my husband. I spend our honeymoon petrified of gaining weight and log several hours each day in the gym trying to burn calories instead of enjoying this time with my new husband. Forced to admit to myself that I can’t spend the rest of my life with Tony obsessed about food and my weight, I realize doing so will surely be the death of our relationship!
A few weeks after our honeymoon it becomes even clearer that I can’t go on this way and that I must decide which is more important–my new marriage or my long and out of control relationship with food and my weight…
One night after binging–as I’m getting ready to purge all of the food I’ve just eaten–I hear Tony pull up in our driveway. Most brides would be excited to hear their new husband coming home from work, but not me!
Oh my God! I panic, now I’ll be stuck with hundreds of calories in my body turning to fat! How am I going to get rid of it all while he’s home? To me, Tony was intruding on my binge time!
Soon after this incident, which emphasizes my high level of frustration and fear, something inside clicks, and I realize I can’t go on this way. I need help–now!
“You Are Either Working At Your Freedom Or You
Are Accepting Your Bondage.” ~ Robert Adams
I start to seek out support groups for compulsive eaters and food addicts, and meet many other individuals who struggle with food and their weight, though most of them don’t go to the same extremes as me. The best part of attending support groups is that I finally have a place to share my experiences and feelings so that I can get my eating and crazy behavior under control and begin to heal. I learn that I’m not alone–they’ve got me and I’ve got them!
Eventually I realize with crystal clarity that food and my weight were never the source of my problem, and that my bulimia, compulsive exercising, and laxative abuse represent a form of slow suicide. I begin to understand that killing myself with compulsive eating behaviors is more socially acceptable than taking my own life.
For many years, I’ve carried a hole deep inside my heart that I try fill with food–my sadness and pain run deep. My issues with eating and my weight are literally symptoms of my self-loathing and low self-esteem–I hate myself so much that I try everything in my power not to deal with these emotions…
Raised to believe that God is punishing and judgmental, I never heard anything good about God as a child growing up. When I begin to attend support groups I hear others say things like “God loves me exactly as I am,” and “God loves and accepts you every day.”
It’s here that I first start to grow spiritually and emotionally–to develop a relationship with a loving, caring, and supportive God. Prior to this I never felt God’s love but now I begin to open up to loving myself…I realize I can create a God that works for me and who totally loves me, no matter my religious upbringing! So that’s exactly what I do–create a God that adores me, loves me, accepts me, cares for me, and supports me in every way possible.
My new relationship with God is the most important part of my healing process because I know if God loves me unconditionally then I’m worthy of love. Over time, I let go of eating addictive-type foods that seem to trigger me to eat more.
After close to a decade of attending support groups, following a specific food plan and releasing my crazy behavior with food, I feel truly and completely healed emotionally, physically, and spiritually in my relationship with food and my weight. However, I’m afraid to let go of the support groups and food plan that I’ve followed for so many years because I don’t want to slip back into my unstable life-threatening behavior.
Every ounce of my being tells me I’m finally free and that I can actually eat normally and release the support programs on which I relied in my deepest darkest hours. But I’m scared to change what’s worked for so many years. My only option is to ask God for guidance and to trust the answer I receive.
God, if you love me so much, why did you allow me to become addicted to food and to suffer from this addiction for the rest of my life? I ask.
The response: My dear child I would never give you something to suffer with for the rest of your life. It is no longer part of you. You are free to eat normally…
I ask again just to make sure I heard correctly, and the answer comes back exactly the same.
Today, I can say with absolute joy that I am totally free! My positive relationship with food and weight is something I cherish every day. And the best part is that I know now that I love myself exactly as I am. Yes, all of me!
The self-hate and condemnation are gone, replaced with love, respect, and joy for the life that I’ve been given. As a result, I appreciate my body more because I put it through hell and it didn’t quit on me–it hung in there through some very rough times! I’d like to believe that my body–along with my spirit– must have known that healing is part of my path and that someday I’d inspire others with my personal story.
Now more than twenty years since I’ve binged, purged, yo-yo dieted, abused laxatives, or compulsively exercised, this transformation didn’t happen overnight. I had to be willing to grow and to let go of self-defeating behaviors that no longer served me. I had to commit on an ongoing basis, keep an open mind spiritually, and possess the strong desire and willingness to change.
Today, free of my food issues because I love who I am and how I show up in this world, I make healthy choices because that is what my body desires and deserves. I eat food that makes my body feel alive, exercise like a normal person, and maintain a size six to eight. Best of all, I feel an incredible sense of gratitude knowing I am free to live my life fully without this dangerous obsession…
* Dangerous Obsession by AmondaRose Igoe – First Published in Pathways to Vibrant Health and Well-Being by http://powerfulyoupublishing.com/
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