I Used To Diet, But I’m Ok Now

Hi!

I’m Karen.  I’m a Professional Weight Lifter.

I go after that 2 ton “it’s unbelievable, how much I suck” feeling fueled by dieting and its faithful sidekick, bingeing.

I routed out the one was weighing me down 11 years and 40 pounds ago.  Now I help women lift that ton of bricks off of them.

If you wish food would quit calling your name when you’re not hungry so you can lose weight in the privacy of your own mind, give me a call, instead.

I’m a Certified Life Strategies Coach but more importantly, I’ve been where you are now: riding the diet binge roller coaster even though the thing is making you sick.

It used to be you’d either find me dieting or bingeing in response to my dieting or bingeing.  That I felt like I was a slave to both made me sad and pissed off.

(photo credit: MyKid)

Why couldn’t I stop.  What was wrong with me.

Ironically, the more I gained, the more I was reduced in my own eyes.

I’d purge my cupboards of the latest whatever it was that was not allowed for the kind of person I was, whatever it was that was too tempting for someone like me to resist.  I’d record what I ate so I could be more aware of where I was weak, and so I could hold myself accountable for my failings and (try to) keep myself in line.

Everything I did on a diet highlighted for me  ”you can’t be trusted.”  The way I ate when I’d finally lose my grip on whatever diet I was on pointed to that, too.

I didn’t want to diet, but I did want to lose weight, and how else was I going to do that when I felt like I couldn’t control myself around food?

The hell of it was that I knew what to do.  But wouldn’t?  Or couldn’t?

I’d tell myself over and over again, if I could just stick to eating when I’m hungry, if I could stop going beyond full like I did so often, I wouldn’t *have to* diet.

Whether I was dieting or bingeing, I felt like I was at the mercy of food.

I’d get sick and my first thought would be “Thank God. Now maybe I’ll lose some weight.”

I got an invite for my college reunion.  I had lost 20 pounds from the 40 I had gained since college.  I thought wait until they see me.  Wait until I get to hear what they say!  After 2 whole seconds of excitement I thought “Shit.  I can’t go.  Last time they saw me, I weighed 20 pounds less than this.”  If I wasn’t going to get to hear people saying “wow you look great!”,  if instead I was going to walk into them thinking how I’d gained weight since they last saw me, I wasn’t going.

I didn’t want anyone seeing me the way I was seeing me.

I wanted to understand why I was the way I was around food.  I wanted to stop feeling like my own worst enemy.

I wanted to like myself.

I was tired of feeling like I couldn’t count on myself to finish something that I claimed was so important.

Tired of being confused and upset about how could I do so much else and not do this One. Simple. Thing.

Tired of feeling like having cake and eating it, too, was for Other People.  (So tired of watching people eat at parties or restaurants what I wanted to eat but “couldn’t” or “shouldn’t” until I was worthy of it.)

Tired of feeling like one piece of chocolate was the going to be the beginning – again – of the end again.

Tired of pretending that it was only a matter of finding the right diet or exercise plan.

Tired of being sure that I was “going to go too far” at the party before I’d even gotten my coat off.

Tired of getting into that smaller size with a triumph unless it was for the last time, because the trip back up the scale was a bitch.

(And while we’re on the subject, I’d had it with suffering the continued indignity of being any scale’s bitch.)

Tired of dashing my hopes before I even got my hope out.

Tired of feeling like no matter how hard or what I tried, nothing was putting any real or lasting distance between me and what felt like the super-sized appeal of using food to change my mood.

No wonder I was tired. What with all of the time I spent thinking about food, trying not to think about food, anticipating how good I was going to feel when I ate it, anticipating how bad I was going to feel when I ate, thinking about how to get rid of the calories that I ate before I ate them, thinking about how I could stop thinking about eating when I wasn’t hungry without eating when I wasn’t hungry.

What bothered me most was knowing exactly what to do to, and not doing it.

( And I was amazed that I had any weight at all to lose, what with the way I was eating myself up from the inside about not doing it on a pretty regular basis.)

My struggles led me to Geneen Roth.  When I was 36, after 22 years of either being on a diet, or being off one and chastising myself for it – using Geneen’s insights, I got out of the diet binge jail I think I might have otherwise been in until–I don’t know.   I hope not until I died.  But in retrospect, it was looking that way until I respected how important emotional eating was to me, – until I understood that I did it because I cared.

I found sanity.  I stopped the bingeing and the crazy thoughts.  I started eating when I got hungry and stopped eating when I was satisfied.

I stopped the yo-yo dieting when I finally remembered what I already knew.

I let my emotional appetite go back to the size it was meant to be, and then my body followed.

I had to figure it out alone. You, you lucky thing, don’t have to.

I want to share with you what I learned from escaping the soul suffocating  and leading other women to freedom.

I want you to remember the who you are with food.

Take a look at testimonials from other women who’ve gotten their memory back.

When I’m not reuniting other smart women with their true food selves , I enjoy spending time with my family. I have a wonderful husband and a 11-year-old daughter. I live in New Jersey. (No, not the Shore.)

You can get in touch with me on Facebook at Effindiets, at twitter at effindiets, or via this contact form.

(If I’m already this happy thinking about it, what am I going to do when I hear from you?)