Permanent Weight Loss: My Story

How I recovered from binge eating disorder, emotional overeating, bulimia, and fibromyalgia, CFS.

Get over your self (ego) and you will receive the World.

My mom got pregnant with my older sister in high school. My parents married as teenagers. They were 17 years old. I also have a younger sister and brother. I was a very quiet kid: a daydreamer who loved books, dancing, and making art. I had trouble fitting in with other kids. In the second grade I was found to be gifted.

My home life was chaotic. My father had an explosive temper. I was terrified of him. We all walked on eggshells around him waiting for the next outburst. My mother was a highly critical perfectionist. It seemed her main concern was that everything had to be clean and perfect looking. They were too young to be parents: a case of kids raising kids.

I suffered from terrible anxiety as far back as I can remember. When I had to transition from kindergarten to the first grade I pulled out all my eyelashes. I would also pick at my skin till it oozed. I was filled with performance anxiety. I was terrified that I couldn’t handle the work that was expected of me.

I was painfully shy, skinny, and wore glasses. The kids at school were really cruel to me. I’ll never forget their taunts. They called me “the 4-eyed toothpick.” Bullies were always picking on me. When the teacher would call on me for an answer I would always reply, “I can’t.” I knew the answer but I was too shy and afraid to speak up in class.

One day I came to class to find my desk filled with notes from every child in the class that read, “ We hate you. We want you out of here.” I found myself in the second grade, alone, afraid and nowhere to turn.

I was given A’s for grades and F’s in effort. “I can’t” was quickly becoming my life mantra. School had been a refuge for me. I now became afraid of groups of people. I stopped speaking at school altogether. It was the beginning of a long battle with depression.

The bright spot in my childhood was to go spend summers and weekends with my Nana and Grandpa. My Nana, who was my father’s mother, was Italian and very warm, loving, and nurturing. My grandparents shared my love of books and learning. With them I felt loved.

My Nana was an excellent cook. She was also a food addict and pusher. She would never take no for an answer. I learned to please her by eating everything she would push on me. I was able to eat enormous amounts of food and not gain weight.

It was with her that I began to equate food with love. All my happiest memories involve her and food. I remember summer mornings where she would take me outside and pluck figs off the tree and pop them, plump and juicy sweet, into my eager, waiting mouth.

I was addicted to sugar as far back as I can remember. At around 5 years old, when I was left alone in my parent’s house, I would climb up into the cupboards and open the boxes of brown and white powdered sugar and eat them with a spoon. I couldn’t get enough! The secrecy of my addiction was already in place.

I would also eat a big bag of candy every day. One day I got a hold of a box of chocolate exlax at my nana’s house. I ate the whole box thinking it was chocolate. I was on the toilet for days!

My parents were fat phobic. My mom was always watching her weight. My older sister was overweight as a child and as an adult. My parents were always after her to lose weight. I wasn’t about to let that happen to me.

Life got worse when I went to junior high school. My appearance changed drastically overnight. I ditched the glasses for some contact lenses, and a face of make-up, and transformed into a lovely swan.

I became obsessed with my appearance, body and boys. People told me every day that I was beautiful, yet it never seemed to fill me with any confidence or self esteem. In fact, I believed I was fooling people. I felt it was the make-up that made me pretty. If they only could see the real me they would know it wasn’t true!

I would look at the pretty popular girls, who seemed so outgoing and think, I could never be like them. I always felt like an outsider looking in. In reality - I was just as pretty as they were - but inside I felt like an alien!

I was overwhelmed by all the attention I was getting. I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand I liked the attention but it soon felt oppressive. I was an extremely private person, and now I was being scrutinized by all the girls and leered at by boys and men. I kept people at a distance. I was terrified of people getting to know the real me. I was certain if they got to know me they wouldn’t like me.

I did have one girlfriend. Our ritual was to go to the doughnut shop after school and eat a couple of éclairs and wash them down with huge cokes. Then I would go home and eat a full dinner! Eating before meals never stopped me from eating more.

I had a homeroom teacher in the 7th grade that would flirt with me. He was around 28 years old and cute. I really enjoyed his attention. He would follow me home in his car, asking me if I wanted a ride. I always said no.

One day I was standing right next to him and the movie projector, in the middle of the classroom, when the kids turned out the lights to watch a film. As soon as the lights went out, he put his hands up my dress. I was too stunned to say or do anything. I never told anyone. Shortly thereafter, I heard he was arrested for having sex with girls in my school.

I became very depressed and kept to myself. I stopped wearing make-up and started trying to look ugly. I took up with some older kids in the neighborhood.

At home there was no parental supervision. No rules or guidelines to follow. They didn’t seem to care. I could be gone for several days and no one would say anything. My parents were totally absorbed in their own world. I felt so alone. I felt if I died no one would even miss me. I felt like an afterthought in their lives.

I became really depressed. It quickly began to spiral out of control. I started to hear a voice (my own) in my head telling me I should die. It would tell me it hated me. This voice just never seemed to let up. I never told anyone what was happening. I didn’t think anyone would do anything to help me anyway. I cried every day. I began to think about suicide all the time. Life became a constant struggle.

At 16, the depression seemed to lift a little. I decided I wanted to be a model. I went to a local modeling agency and was told to lose 10 1bs. off my already slender frame. I became obsessed with weight loss and dieting. I would spend my lunch hours in the library reading fashion magazines. I would study all the diets in the magazines.

One day I read about fasting. I decided to fast on nothing but water for 5 days! On about day 3, I started to feel deliriously high and agitated. I managed to do it for the full 5 days. On the sixth day, I started bingeing like there was no tomorrow! This was the beginning of my binge eating disorder.

For the next 15 years I was either on a binge or a diet. I began to spend hours obsessing on the way my body looked. My butt was too big, my breasts too small, and my legs too skinny. I needed constant reassurance from others that I was pretty. I would look for the reflection of who I was in their eyes. If I couldn't find it, I felt I ceased to exist.

When I was on a binge I would drive all around town making my rounds. I would stop in at See’s and get a big bag of chocolates. After that, I would make stops at different fast food joints, going to the drive thru's and bingeing in the car. Finally, I’d stop in at the grocery store and get a Sara lee cheesecake to finish the binge off good!

After I'd eaten most of it, I’d throw the remains outside into the garbage and tell myself I wouldn’t eat anymore. I would dump garbage over it so I wouldn't want it. I would wind up going out and eating it right out of the garbage can! These episodes would fill me with great shame and self-loathing but I couldn’t stop. Food helped comfort me and silenced the demons that were raging inside me.

When the weight began to show (about 10-20 lbs. overweight) I would begin to starve myself, and exercise like a mad woman. Sometimes I would become seriously underweight and my periods would stop. At one point I didn’t have a period for a year and a half because I was so thin. 

Once I got started gaining weight, the binge cycle would start up again. Sometimes I would use laxatives or vomit, but my main weight loss strategy was starvation diets and over exercising. I became a human yo-yo, gaining and losing the same 10-20 lbs. over and over again for the next 14 years.

By the time I was 17, I was really tired all the time. I knew something was wrong with me. I had terrible PMS and I would bloat up like a balloon. My muscles started to ache and spasm all the time. Looking back, I can see this was the beginning of me developing chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

I went to college at 17 and absolutely loved it. I was an honor student and I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect in every way that I wound up bingeing every day. Even though I loved school, I was still an emotional wreck. I would eat all day on the weekends to help relieve the stress and anxiety I felt.

At the end of the year, I decided I couldn't handle the pressure of school,  so I quit and got a job as a facialist and make-up artist. I was able to buy my own condominium at 18 years old. This seemed to make me happy for all of 5 minutes. I was terrified of being alone.

At night, I would go out to Baskin Robbins at night to binge on ice cream. When I got bored of this I began to go out to discos, and drink and dance all night. I had grown up with so much chaos that when life was good, I didn’t know how to handle it. I became bored. I couldn’t stand the day in, day out routine of work. I longed for a life of adventure and romance!

At 21 years old, I sold my condominium and moved from Sacramento to Hollywood. I got a job as a make-up artist on Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills. I quickly became lost in the Hollywood party scene. It was 1978, the height of the disco era. 

I went out on a dinner date just about every night. I ate my way through the city's best restaurants. I was in heaven. I was now hooked on the gourmet stuff. I was 20 pounds overweight and I didn't care! I would eat, dance, and drink the nights away; I was a babe on a bender - completely out of control!

My body couldn't handle such a frenetic pace and it started to break down. I got sick with a strep throat that wouldn’t go away. My hair started to fall out. I became extremely fatigued and my joints were very painful. My glands were swollen. I was running a low-grade fever. I was also seriously depressed. It wouldn’t get diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome for another 10 years. It took several years for me to get better though I never fully recovered.

I moved to Marin County with my boyfriend. The move was good for me. It was a slower paced life with lots of beautiful nature for me to enjoy. I decided to go to culinary school in San Francisco since I now had a gourmet food habit to support!

After I graduated from school, I got a job on a beautiful estate in Ross as a personal chef, cooking for a wealthy investment banker and his family. This was a dream job. I got to live in a restored carriage house on the grounds, cook in a state of the art kitchen, eat the whole day long and get paid! Best of all, I was alone with my drug of choice: food!

My energy never fully returned. I struggled all the time to get through the day. I continued on like this for many years. I was always depressed and I began therapy for my issues but it never seemed to help me any; my life never improved. I became a full time seeker. I would go from doctor to doctor, and try many different therapists and antidepressants with no real success. I was always looking for health, happiness and answers in things outside of myself.

At 28 years old, I began to devour books about metaphysics, psychology, spirituality and Buddhism. I felt that these things held answers for me. I also spent a lot of time walking out in nature. This seemed to ground me.

I would daydream of some day being an artist, therapist and writer. Then I would be filled with sadness because I didn’t possess the health, energy, or confidence to achieve those things. I always relegated it to “oh well, someday.”

I began to attend overeaters anonymous. I found these meetings very eye opening as to the extent of my food addiction. In OA I discovered that food was my core addiction and that underlying it was anxiety and depression. I was eating to help numb my fear and anxiety. I didn’t stay in overeaters anonymous for very long though. I really wasn't comfortable around groups of people at that time in my life. I do give it credit for helping me along my path.

I started to meditate and began to pray and ask God for help. I knew I needed it. I began to use my daily nature walk as a mindfulness meditation. I stopped dieting and began to eat regular meals, and that helped slow down the bingeing. I was addicted to sugar and caffeine. I slowly started to wean myself off these things.

I eliminated the idea of good and bad foods. I learned to eat high calorie foods in moderation. I allowed myself treats. I planned for them. I only ate desserts if I could share it with another person or two at a restaurant. I never kept sweets in my house.

I began to practice mindfulness around food. I learned to key into my feelings to discern if I was hungry for food or if what I really wanted was emotional nourishment. I began to trust my body and I only ate until I felt my body signal's that it was full. With this practice, I started to truly savor food and found that I ate much less. My weight came off and began to stabilize; my bingeing stopped completely.

I decided I would have to stop cooking for a living. It was too easy to binge being around that much food. It was just too tempting. The universe supported that decision. I hurt my back while cooking, and was forced to look for other employment.

I started to open myself up to life. I was developing some happiness and serenity. My obsessive interest in food and weight began to fall away. My chaotic life started to calm down. I began to feel connected with God. In fact, I started to feel connected to everything! I began to have a spiritual awakening;  I could feel my spirit coming back to life.

Then suddenly, my beloved Nana died from an aneurysm. I was devastated.  A year later, just when my grief  had started to subside, my grandfather, who was despondent over the death of my Nana, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. That pushed me right over the edge and I spiraled downward into a deep depression.

One year later my health completely gave out. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Later fibromyalgia was added to the growing list. I felt like “The Queen of Disorder.” I had no energy left to function. My body hurt all over. I was living in constant pain. Food was no longer an issue. Survival became my issue. My life had become a living death. It was a struggle to continue on. Many times I just wanted to die. I felt I had no reason to keep going.

I had to move back home with my parents. I was 30 years old. I was living my worst nightmare! I felt like a complete failure. My self-esteem was non-existent. I had won a reprieve from food, only to lose my most precious possession: my health. No longer able to work - I had lost everything. It would take me years to regain my health, confidence and self-esteem.

Looking back now, at 50 years old, I see these so called "lost years" as a great gift. The illness absolutely stopped me in my tracks. Since there was no cure or treatments for these conditions I had nowhere to go but inside to look for answers. It forced me to develop a healthier relationship with myself, and put me on my life path.

Illness has been a great teacher. I was forced to give up various behaviors that were killing me. These changes did not happen over night. I had to change the relationship I had with my body. I had always thought of my body as something to whip into submission and ride roughshod over.

I think that illness is ultimately a spiritual dilemma. It makes us ask the big questions. Why me? Why now? What is my purpose in this life? Healing and recovery became my passion and calling.

I have always possessed a love of learning and research, so when I was diagnosed I decided to become an expert on my illness. I took courses in nutrition, stress reduction, hypnotherapy, attitudinal healing, fitness, and meditation. I also spent years studying psychology, meditation, spirituality, and the mind/body connection.

I became certified in everything that I learned.  I was trained by a major health maintenance organization (HMO) in a Stanford based mind-body health program and taught workshops in coping with chronic illness.

I learned to let go and go with the flow - to just be - and live mindfully. I learned the power of optimism and how to be resilient in the face of adversity. I became a creative problem solver. The illness stripped away the inessentials in my world and helped me find what my true values were and to live them. Ultimately, it taught me I had worth just because I was alive and not because of what I did, or what I looked like.

A big turning point in my recovery was forgiving myself and learning to have compassion and love for myself. I had spent a lifetime hating myself. What was my terrible crime? Simply being human. I had expected such perfection from myself!

I learned to be gentle with my fragile humanness. This led me to be able to be forgiving and accepting of other people’s frailties as well. This is the truly the path to peace.

All my life I had craved attention and love from others, and what I really needed was to pay attention to and love myself. I had spent my life MIA. Missing in action! I had failed to show up for my own life. Having sunk so low, I came to a place where I had to make a choice whether I was going to live or die. Making a decision to live at that point was an act of courage! It would have been easier to just roll over and die.

I had spent a lifetime denying who I was. I realized all I ever really wanted was to be my true self, the self that God had always intended for me. I was what I was seeking all along! As it is said in the bible, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”

Through regular time in nature, solitude, prayer, and meditation, I was able to develop a relationship with my higher Self. In time, this connection became so strong that I knew I could trust and love the wisdom that lived inside of me. It guided me to create a way of being in the world that nourished my soul, and truly sustained my Being. I had become authentic.

Meditation helped me to be with myself - to become still. Underneath the reverberant chatter of my mind, I discovered the vast, calm, clear center of my being. I began to realize that I could always live from this center. This was the source of my Being, and no matter what was happening in my outer world, I could always return to the calm, inner sanctuary of my soul. Peace, love, and happiness were states that lived within me, not outside of me.

Meditation gave birth to a part of me that could witness the antics of my mind. The stronger this witness became, the more I could detach and not react to the dramatics of my mind. I began to see my mind was like a nonstop projection machine that just churned out thoughts - good, bad, and indifferent.

I was not my mind, thoughts, or ego. I was much bigger than this! I saw that the fear and anxiety that had imprisoned me all my life was generated from my mind. It was not real! I had a choice whether to believe these thoughts. The more power I invested in these thoughts, the more fear my mind generated. I could choose to focus on positive thoughts instead.

One day, I awakened. I simply woke up and realized the truth of reality. Reality is completely neutral. It just is. It is the thoughts and the story I tell myself about reality that is the cause of all my suffering. I did not have to be defined by my past. I simply stepped out of the old story of my life and began to create a new story. That was the day I stopped being a victim and stepped into a brand new life!

I found my creativity blossomed when I gave myself permission to let my inner artist come out and play! I began to fill my life with all the things that filled me with wonder and joy. I took up photography, jewelry making, and writing. These things fed my spirit and infused my life with energy. Creativity became a part of my daily spiritual practice. It is a direct portal into joy and light.

I had always minimized the importance of being creative - telling myself it didn’t really matter - that I could never make a living doing the things I loved. This was so untrue! These were the gifts that God gave me. To not use one’s own innate gifts is an insult to God!

Living an authentic life is honoring the divine gifts within me. In this way my life has become a living prayer, a tribute to power of Spirit. Healing my own life has become my greatest work of art.

I never imagined that my life could ever be this simple and peaceful. Most of my life was spent getting over me. Life can be hard, but what I know today is - I made it much harder than it had to be. The irony is when I surrendered my small (ego) self to the flow of life, I transcended myself and became so much more. As a human being I am limited, but as a spiritual being I am infinitely magnificent!

It’s not what happens to you in life - it’s how you react to it. It is the story you tell yourself about what happens to you that determines how you will react. I have learned to see that in every obstacle and struggle there is a gift. It is our responsibility to find out what that gift or lesson is.

I have been able to synthesize all my years of experience into my work with weight. I am the creator of The Weight Loss Master’s Club, a weight and life mastery program. Everything I have learned over the course of my life has gone into this work!

Permanent weight loss is really about lifestyle and spiritual change: finding new ways of being in the world that support one’s spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health.

It is the work of becoming a new self. I think of myself as a midwife. I assist in the birth of a new self. I help people reconnect to their inner light, so they can truly shine! Being able to share my knowledge and make a positive impact in people’s lives is what makes my life’s journey rewarding.

I am living my dream. I am a writer, artist, mentor and coach.

I’m in the business of shining stars. Today my own star is shining brightly!

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