T Minus 11 Months

Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross to save me from my sins. I was flawed from birth, I was taught. My very nature was evil, so evil that God couldn’t stand to be around me. But then God became a man and was tortured, beaten, humiliated and eventually made to die the slowest, most gruesome death you can dream up…all because of me. I accepted his free gift, his death, and in return I was to make my life like his. I was to suffer, disregard my desires, wants and needs, for the sake of others. My Mom was a great example of putting others, us kids, before her own needs. Other women in my church also displayed the same selflessness, serving the family before caring for themselves. The concept of self care was never taught as a virtue in my upbringing.

Getting Healthy

After hitting bottom a few months back, I resolved to educate myself on a better way to live. I had since devoured a dozen or so personal development books and, through those books, along with therapy, Al-Anon, yoga and a progressive church, I had learned how those old ways of behaving “selflessly,” trying to “die to my flesh” and “put to death every desire,” as the Bible puts it, were actually never taught to me properly. And they no longer served me.

I recalled the image of the universe, flowing like a river toward all things good (as opposed to a nasty place, doomed to burn), and of myself as a cork, floating in the river. Any time something bad happened, it was because I had attached to a rock at the bottom of the river. I was resisting the natural flow. All I needed was to release resistance.

Two huge, new ideas presented themselves, and eventually became a total paradigm shift for me:

The universe was actually on my side. I didn’t need to struggle and fight.
I was not flawed, but rather good at my core, and trusting my desires was actually the best thing I could do for myself and, ultimately, for others.

These ideas didn’t embed themselves overnight. I had been rewiring my brain for some time. The old thinking still told me I was bad, and the world was doomed to failure, and I needed to fight. But the new thinking was telling me I was being pulled forward into a perfect future, and this pulling required zero effort.

My world had been flipped upside down by these two simple ideas. I was already seeing these ideas in action, manifesting blessings in my life. I had already trusted my gut enough to leave my husband, rent my own apartment, file for divorce, cut back on work and list my business for sale. I trusted my appetite for dignity, rest, and even for little bits of pleasure.

But I still fought my appetite for food. I was terrified that, if I actually let my body have what it wanted, I would balloon up to a big fat cow. It was my worst nightmare.

The more I read on the subject, the more I began to accept the facts: If I wanted to be healthy, I need to convince my body that there was enough food. That meant trusting my hunger.

Step one: We admitted we were powerless over (food, alcohol, drug addict husbands, yoga studio class sizes, business partners, bank account balances, Mom’s opinions) and that our lives had become unmanageable.

I wanted to be ready to give up the last little bit of control. But it wasn’t that easy. I resolved to try it, even just for a day. I resolved to eat if my body was hungry, to eat what it was hungry for, and to stop only when I was full. If my body was good and the future and the order of nature was on my side, then I had at least to try to trust my body.

Gaining Weight

Giving in to my hunger was awful. The full power of the primal brain, inside an animal that has been underfed for the last fifteen years, unleashed itself within me. Everything in me screamed for food, for the feeling of fullness, like lungs crying out for oxygen. My body needed to be fed. And, for the first time, I was going to listen to it. Of course, I had given in to hunger many times before, in binges. But I had always followed by making myself vomit, which only made matters worse.

The first binge without a purge was the worst. After a loaf of gluten free bread and half a jar of almond butter, I felt “sorta” satisfied, but also panicky. I knew I had just eaten enough to actually gain weight. This wasn’t just like eating a little dessert and feeling guilty. I really, really was going to gain a pound or two of pure fat from what I just ate. The food felt like poison inside my belly. I wanted to put on a men’s XL t-shirt and sweats. I want to bury myself in a hole.

Step two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

The Voice

“Sit with the discomfort” was something I told my yoga students. I couldn’t get it out of my head. That moment was pivotal for me. I remember closing the fridge and crying as I walked to my bedroom and got under the covers, even though it was mid afternoon. I started sobbing hard. I started slamming my fist into my pillow. I felt like I wanted to be lower, so I climbed out of bed and laid face down on the bare, wooden floor. A little pool of snot and tears gathered under my cheek, reminding me of the last time I had been in that position. I pushed my face into the grimy floor, trying get smaller and lower.

“You will lose your beauty.”

I don’t know where the words came from. The voice wasn’t audible, but it was from outside me.

“You will lose your beauty, and you will gain your soul.”

And it wouldn’t shut up. Over and over

“You will lose your beauty. And you will gain your soul.”

“NO!” I shouted. “NO! I can’t, I won’t, don’t make me go through this!” I begged and I sobbed, and I sobbed and I begged, but somehow I knew the voice could not be bargained with. Surrender was my only option.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a Higher Power as we understood such a Power.

Putting an end to it

The second binge without a purge sucked just as much. The seventh and eighth times were no better. But I didn’t purge. I let myself eat as much as I wanted, but I had to keep it in. Slowly, my body started to recognize how awful it felt to eat that much food at once. Eventually, binges turned into XL portions and frequent meals. I was hungry the moment I opened my eyes in the morning. The first thing I did was to make a huge bowl of oatmeal and a protein shake. Within an hour or less, I was hungry again. I would make a veggie omelet. After teaching my first yoga class, I would be famished and return home for a large salad with lots of olive oil and chicken. By noon I was ready for lunch. It would go on like this all day, eating a full meal, large and healthy, almost every hour. I was committed to listening to my hunger, and I was physically starving.

My weight did indeed change. Over the course of one year I gained 30 pounds. I felt absolutely disgusting. I had to buy new clothes, twice. My thighs chafed when I walked in my bathing suit. I couldn’t do many of the yoga poses I easily used to do. I couldn’t stand the sight of myself in the mirror. It often brought tears. I took a whiteboard marker to my bathroom mirror, writing things I loved about myself all over it. I hung a sheet over my full length mirror, so I didn’t have to see. I lived in yoga pants and avoided jeans at all costs. Many times, when I wanted to go out with friends, I would try on everything in my closet and end up in tears, texting my friends to cancel plans. I just couldn’t stand to bring my fat self out in public.

I had never been that heavy in my life. Even though I loathed the sight of myself, I clung to some tiny bit of faith that this was indeed the process my body needed in order to heal. After gaining four dress sizes, I still had no energy. I still wasn’t getting my period. I was still starving all the time, and my faith was dwindling. This stupid body could not be trusted after all!

“I’m thinking of going on a low carb plan of eating,” I told my therapist, purposely avoiding the word diet. “Maybe my body just doesn’t like carbs. You know my ancestors are from cold climates, they wouldn’t have had much for fruits or even grains, mostly meat.” I was referencing something I read somewhere about eating for your blood type.

“Well, how have you felt in the past when you’ve tried that?”

“Skinny…” I paused, “…exhausted…”

“Hmm, do you think your body is more likely to know what’s right for you, or the diet books you’ve read?”

“I don’t know what to think. I hate this body, I want a new one.”

“Okay, let’s start there.”

I was beginning to hate my therapist as much as my body. Why was she always so annoyingly right!

T minus 3 Months

Thanksgiving rolled around. I was terrified of being without my family, and now I didn’t have my in-laws to celebrate with either. Mustering humility, I asked a girlfriend if I could spend the day with her family. We ate well, we overate, we ate dessert. After all, it was Thanksgiving. Returning home to the Princess Cave that night, I found the heater had been turned off. It was cold and lonely after the laughter of my friend’s family. My belly felt fatter than ever. Even though I had been feeding myself well for months, I still clung to “safe foods” and never ate things like pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes.

The Voice sounded so much like my own that night that I believed it actually was. I hate this stupid body! I’ve been trying to listen to it for a year, and all it is doing is getting fat. I’m not getting healthier, I’m getting FAT. I’m not learning to listen to my hunger, I’m getting FAT! FUCK THIS, FUCK ALL OF THIS!

I put my hair in a ponytail, heading for the bathroom. I lifted the seat and dropped to my knees. I stuck my finger down my throat. I gagged once, twice, three times. But nothing happened. Nothing came up. I found my toothbrush and stuck the handle down my throat. I coughed and it hurt my throat, but still nothing. I was such a fat, miserable failure that I couldn’t even make myself vomit anymore. I crumpled to the bathroom floor in tears. I had never hated my idiotic body so much in my life.

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*some names have been changed to protect privacy

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