Another Reader Shares A History of Struggle with Eating and Weight

Nancy Newman, a reader from Minneapolis, Minn., sent me this account, along with her permission to attach her name to them. She said they appeared in slightly different form in a magazine called Woman in 1984:

"It still seems like a miracle. For 45 years I was a woman who believed that only a miracle could release me from my physical and emotional bondage to food. I can still recall the pain, the anger, the sobbing prayers, the hopeless desolation. Today--ten years later--it's just a memory.

I was a closet eater. No one ever saw me "pig out"....they saw a disciplined dieter, a model of good eating. My family did know that I used the technique called T & S (Taste & Spit), but I always did the spitting out of sight. Today I realize how close that was to bulimia. I was never what anyone would call fat -- 20 pounds overweight at most. But I fought a war with food; I both hated and loved it. I was the classic, white-knuckled dieter who'd starve and binge, starve and binge. Only those closest to me knew I had a problem. The comment I heard most often, "You don't have to worry about food...you're so lucky, you're so thin," made me wince, thought I worked to maintain that image. But in private I struggled and suffered wile my whole life focused on food.

My weight yo yo'd--up 10 pounds, down 5, up 15--so regularly that I marveled at friends who bought off-season clothes on sale: how could they assume those clothes would fit when the next season arrived? I had my fat clothes, my thin clothes, and my somewhere-in-between clothes. And always, there was the one pair of jeans that represented victory whenever I could get into them. They were the measuring stick of my success.

Today I'm free, released from the bondage of food, yet free to enjoy it. And enjoy it I do ... even more than before.

There was no sudden turning point, no magic solution, no single, absolute answer. I discovered a few significant principles and began practicing some small behavior changes, and the combination added up to success. With the passionate hope that my experience may touch a nerve in someone else's tender psyche, I'll share that experience.

I had begun by tentatively trying some behavior modification techniques: eating slowly, putting my fork down between bites, and not eating between meals--but also not letting too many hours elapse before eating so that my body didn't go into starvation mode. It amazed me how those simple changes helped. At the same time an awareness was growing that a fear of food was the core of my problem. I was afraid to eat a forbidden food for fear I'd lose all control and go "hog wild" (an apt phrase, I now realize). I began to see that "forbidden" translated into "desirable." When foods were forbidden I fantasized about them; if I knew I could have them, they didn't seem so important. So a larger awareness grew: I CAN EAT ANYTHING I WANT! The trick would be to eat in reasonable and limited quantities.

Glowing with hope, I dared one day to accompany a friend to an Italian restaurant, tossing aside my belief that all pasta is fattening and forbidden to dieters. Halfway through a plate piledhigh with spaghetti, I suddenly felt uncomfortably full. Old feelings from my diet mentality returned in a flash: How could I leave the spaghetti uneaten? And how could I leave on my plate that which I'd paid for? Two thoughts--maybe they were the miracles--crept into my mind: The price I'd paid was for a meal that would satisfy me, not for a given amount. If I was now physically satisfied, hadn't I gotten my money's worth? I also asked myself, "Is there a law that says I can never eat spaghetti again?

The realization struck me that I could eat spaghetti again tomorrow if I liked.

I left the plate half full and passed a milestone. (Today my frugality would probably cause me to ask for a doggy bag!)

I began to think more in terms of choices. Since I truly could have anything I wanted, I'd choose for reasons other than availabilityy..No longer did I need to think, "I'll eat it all now, and tomorrow I'll diet." No more of the thinking that says, "Today I've been bad, but tomorrow I'll be good." I began to relax with food instead of fighting it. I began to lose the fear that just tasting something would send me crashing into gluttony. A bit of one cookie wouldn't inevitably lead to the gorging of a dozen. The fear had always created the fact and had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A second discovery--embarrassingly obvious--was that the lingering taste of a food in my mouth was what made me crave more of it. If so,the simple and also obvious answer was to get rid of the taste, by rinsing my mouth or brushing my teeth. But as dieters everywhere will quickly respond, "Where do you get the will power or even the desire to stop stuffing the food long enough to do either of those things? I want to eat more."

Fair enough. But consider this: You will always want more unless you continue stuffing till you are completely gorged or physically sick. You can indeed choose to do either. But if you decide that is not what you want, you're left with the question, "Where do I stop?" The answer is to decide logically where that point will be, recognizing that there is no point at which the taste won't continue to lure you. Therefore, make the decision: one bite or three bites or one cup or whatever. And then stop. Go brush your teeth. Recognize that there is no point at which you will not want more, so why not stop at the point that leaves you feeling good about yourself? Make sense?

There are many techniques I practice which are supports in the lifelong eating style I'm building. I eat only when I'm hungry and only till I'm comfortable full. I eat slowly...the amount of food seems greater because it lasts longer. Though I now choose foods primarily for their health value, which means I include some that I accept but don't quite love, I make sure that every meal includes some food that I really look forward to. If a meal has nothing I can anticipate with pleasure, it may satisfy me physically but certainly not emotionally.

A word about exercise: The word is "essential." There is reliable evidence that our appetite control centers do not function properly when our bodies are sedentary, that exercise helps us control our appetites more easily. How has that affected me? Aside from the other wonderful benefits I get from exercise--increased energy, aerobic fitness, and just "feeling good"--there is the simple fact that I can eat more. Not a lot. But enough to allow the extras that keep my diet from seeming spartan.

The word "diet" has a new meaning for me. It no longer means something I go"on" and therefore inevitably go "off." It mean "the food I eat, day in and day out." I still love food. But now food is in its proper place in my life, and I'm in control and not it.

A miracle.

That's the end of the story, but here's the epilogue and the response to your book. I am now 81 years old and have had many physical problems, from cancer and chemotherapy to hip replacements and shoulder repair, but I still consider myself healthy. My physical activity is not what it was 25 years ago, but I walk a lot, ride my bike, snowshoe, and do yoga exercises. It's not always pretty but it's fun! And I'm 5'5" and weigh 117 lbs. so you can see I'm still having a happy relationship with food."