A Spiritual Approach to Weight Loss

by Gerri Helms
(Titusville, FL )

I wasn’t fat as a kid. Second in a family of six, sandwiched in between two brothers I was active in sports, a tomboy and I played hard. I swam competitively, was a flag twirler in my high school band and rode my bike everywhere! However, at four years old, I was already stealing candy and whenever I could get away with it, ate more than my share! Probably all the activity kept me from being overweight.

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My senior year in high school, I had surgery for a knee injury and the evidence of my overeating surfaced for the first time. I was seventeen and gaining weight pretty rapidly! That summer, as the weight went up, my self esteem went down. Dates were few and far between. If a fellow asked, I accepted and overeating was temporarily replaced with alcohol. Now, along with being fat, I was drinking too much too. How would I ever meet a nice guy? I just had to lose weight.

And so my dieting career commenced with Aydes candies. Remember them? Take one or two with a cup of hot tea. I always ate many more than that but lost weight anyway.Thus began a thirty year stint of yo-yo dieting. At age 18, I was a size 16 when my first husband proposed to me. But by April of the following year, I fit into a size 10 wedding gown.

I have gone over 200 pounds three times in my twenty-five year eating career and the last time, when I hit 248, I just quit weighing myself and went up 2 more dress sizes to a plus size twenty-four (24). So I don't really know my exact top weight.

In January of 1993, I had begun to experience heart palpitations. Both my mother and oldest brother have diabetes and I feared that would be next; my doctor said I was borderline. At 43 years old, my joints hurt and my feet stung when they hit the floor in the morning. The cardiologist told me that I’d probably not see my fiftieth birthday if I didn’t do something about my weight.

So I went back to one of the popular diet clubs.I thought,“This time, I’ll prepay for a whole year! Yeah, that will do it!” When I left, I proceeded to the closest frozen yogurt shop and binged. Again. I thought, “hell, if I’m gonna die at 50, I may as well enjoy myself.” Food, food, food, that’s what my life had narrowed down to. Just me and food.

Shortly after my brush with suicide, a friend from work recognized my depression and gave me a book to read, about food addiction. For the first time in my life, it seemed like somebody understood what was going on with me. And really changed how I thought about food.

I grabbed onto the principles in that book and I've never looked back. I wrote down what happened that horrible night where I nearly killed myself and carried that piece of paper in my pocket for nearly a year, until it finally went through the washing machine. Whenever a pizza seemed like a good idea, I’d take that paper out and read it. Today it is deeply ingrained in my brain. THAT is my reality of returning to excess food. I'll probably kill myself.

While that book really launched a whole new way of eating for me, as time went on, I discovered more about myself and why I ate the way I did. As my weight went down, my self esteem went up. My husband and I divorced. I moved out on my own for the first time in my life and didn’t over eat to deal with the new experiences. I learned how to deal with life without having to resort to excess food.

I am maintaining a 100 plus pound weight loss now for seventeen years. Prior to this success with weight loss, I had tried so many diets. There was Atkins, Stillman and The Dolly Parton Diet. I did the T-Factor, high protein, low fat, low protein, high fat! I used diet pills, protein shakes, peed on a stick that was supposed to turn purple for ketosis or some nonsense like that! Life was either dieting or bingeing; no normal eating for over twenty-five years.

The compulsion to over eat has pretty much been lifted. And best of all, I lost all the excess weight ... and have kept it off. I never was able to do that in the past. Oh I have my days where I’d like to really rip into food, but they’re few and far between. And when the compulsion hits, I no longer need to act on it. Period!

Sherri here: Congratulations Gerri for losing and keeping the weight off for so many years!!

I noticed that you said the turning point for you was when you changed the how you thought about food. This is the key to losing weight. Our willpower only lasts so long. We have to change our thoughts which is why I am such a believer in self hypnosis. It makes it easier to change our thoughts so that they are congruent with the things we want.

Self esteem is often at the hear of the matter. I wrote an article about that here:

Are There Any Good Tricks For Easy Weight Loss? You may be looking for a few good tips or tricks to help you lose weight. There is ONE thing that you can do right NOW! Self hypnosis can help you change the way you think about food. Even more importantly, it can help you change the way you think about yourself.

p.s. I do remember Aydes candies but I never heard of the Dolly Parton diet!