My Story

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I've struggled with food and my weight as long as I can remember. 

As a child, I remember climbing on countertops to reach cookies high up in the cupboard. And often one was not enough to satisfy me. I remember scheming ways to get more than my share at church potlucks. I bartered with my younger sister to get half of her Hallowe'en stash after mine was gone. My allowances were spent quickly at the corner store, usually on chocolate. 

A chubby child, I was often put on diets, and I can remember following my mom's Weight Watcher's plan even before I was old enough to join myself. 

In high school, my weight was up and down, but the 'down' only came with a restrictive meal plan and a LOT of exercise. And as soon as there was a tiny crack in that restrictive plan, I blew it wide open with a free-for-all mindset, devouring everything that had previously been forbidden.

Always hungry for knowledge about what actually works, I even completed my undergraduate thesis on Self-Esteem and Dieting, analyzing thousands of survey responses to try to discover some answers.

As an adult, I tried just about everything I could think of to lose weight:

· Food combining (based on the book Eating Alive)

· Weight Watchers - more times than I can count

· Therapy for emotional eating

· Soooo many self-help books: 

• You on a Diet - it all comes down to willpower (or does it?)
• My Big Bottom Blessing - I tried to love my 'bigger' self
• You are Not What you Weigh - I tried to cling to a better identity instead of my size
• The Beck Diet Solution - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, anyone? 
• Four-Day Win - I tried to retrain my thoughts about my relationship with food
• Made to Crave - I learned that cravings are not meant to be filled by food, but that we still need an eating plan. Ugh.

• Four-Hour Body - eating "slow carb" all week with one cheat day. Oh, how I dreamed of that cheat day, and by the third week, I realized that bingeing on whatever I wanted one day/week really could undo all the hard work from the previous week. 
• Juice Fasting - inspired by the movie "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead", I bought a juicer and proceeded to juice hundreds of pounds of vegetables and some fruit, subsisting on only juice, waiting for mental clarity to arrive. The plan was to give it 6 weeks; I lasted 6 days. 
• Gluten-Free - OK, so this one isn't really a weight-loss tool, but I thought that if I could avoid bread and pasta, I might just lose weight. But I didn't give them up, I substituted rice pasta and gluten-free treats. Even though I maintained this for over a year, I didn't lose any weight; the only thing I lost was money on those expensive substitutes. One day, I simply gave up in the face of fresh, steaming naan. 
• Weight Watchers - I tried this one so.many.times. I only got to goal weight once, then became a leader. I realized that it only worked when calories were restricted, and I didn't feel good when I ate their "low points" products. I eventually became disillusioned with the whole enterprise when I saw people coming back again and again to start over, just as I had done, and each time, their starting weight was heavier than before.
• Just eating 'healthy' as best as I knew how. Make most things from scratch, with good ingredients. After all, making your own cookies and blueberry pies must be better than store-bought, processed foods, right? I watched as my weight soared, and eventually gave up weighing myself. 

I embraced every eating plan and every book with fresh hope. And at the end of each one, I had not achieved my goals. Moreover, I was so disappointed in myself and my lack of ability to lose the weight. I beat myself up for not being able to stick to it, for 'caving', for being weak, for failing, for never being able to conquer this issue in my life. What was wrong with me? I'm smart. I've earned an undergraduate degree in psychology, and a Master's in Social Work. And I still. Can't. Figure. This. Out. 

In the summer 2017, when my 10-year old son said that he thought he was too fat and wanted to do something about it, my heart went out to him. I saw my own 10-year old self, and didn't want him to go down the same path as me. A friend of mine had had success with keto, and although it ran counter to all of my low-fat thinking, I decided to explore it. We joined with another family, and together we all watched "That Sugar Film". My eyes were opened to just how destructive sugar is. One week later, we cleaned out our pantry and all started keto together. I enjoyed looking up recipes that would keep us on track, and enjoyed the freedom of eating cheese and meat. I especially enjoyed making all kinds of keto desserts with 'approved' sweeteners: fudge, cheesecake, almond cookies and fat bombs. Delish!

There were some obvious benefits: more sustained energy, undeniably better moods, no more 'hangry'. And I had a partner with the mom from the other family for accountability. My son, my daughter, my husband all lost weight. But where was MY weight loss? I only lost about 8-10 pounds, even after 2 years. I didn't want to give up, but I felt ripped off. I started to suspect that the sweeteners weren't all that good for me. During the second year, I watched speakers during the Quit Sugar Summit talk about whole foods, keto and intermittent fasting. When they talked about sugar addiction, I was only half listening. After all, I no longer ate sugar. 

But wait, that intermittent fasting thing sounds kind of interesting. Imagine the freedom to be able to eat what you wanted, but only during your ever-shrinking 'eating window'. That was very appealing to me, so I read up on it (yes, more books!), and then tried it in the fall of 2019. The problem was, I was back to binge eating within that window. The weight gain started again. It was mitigated only slightly by the fasting, and I suspected that it was probably not going to end well. 

So now what? I received a few emails from the organizer of the Quit Sugar event I had watched the previous summer. The emails spoke of freedom when you finally recognize sugar, in ALL its forms (sweeteners, refined carbohydrates, etc), is addictive and needs to be treated as a drug. Wait, what? The penny started to drop for me. Could I possibly be addicted? I mentally tallied up all the times I answered 'yes' in short quiz in the emails. Well, what have I got to lose? If I do nothing, I know where my weight is headed. I made a 'don't break the chain' printout for 2020, and put the label at the top, "No Sugar". 365 days without sugar. Or sweeteners. Yikes!

Giving up sugar itself wasn't that difficult for me; after all, I hadn't really had it for over 2 years. But giving up sweeteners and ALL the trace amounts of sugar - that proved more difficult. With the support of family and the private Facebook group and weekly meetings, I was actually doing it. But again, the weight wasn't coming off quickly enough for me. 

So, I took the restriction even further when I started to learn about carnivore. I found that eating this way was extremely simple, and had good success with it for about 4 months. I liked the simplicity, I liked the weight loss, and I liked that my cravings were completely gone. It was simple, but it was also very difficult when eating out or getting together with other people. 

Pretty soon, it was feeling too restrictive and the wheels came off of that plan, too. After a 2-day long bike trip, my husband and I treated ourselves to an amazing steak dinner out in Toronto. When they brought the bread basket, we came undone, and believed ALL of the lies the disease told me. Just a little won’t hurt. You’ve biked over 200 kms. You can get back on track tomorrow. It wasn’t long before I ordered dessert too. The next day, I started out with resolve, but soon found myself eating pastries and pad thai. The day after, my ‘start fresh’ attitude lasted until about noon, then I was buying ice cream bars and cookies. This pattern continued every day for about 5 weeks. 

I knew I needed help. I knew my situation had outstripped my ability for self-help. I knew that, while it was fun to eat with abandon, it wasn’t serving me. And I knew it had to stop; I knew deep down that I was on a self-destructive path. In Sept 2021, I looked up Bitten Jonssen to find someone to work with locally who had been trained in her ways. And I found that Clarissa was located in Ontario where I live, and I contacted her. 

It was exactly what I needed. Oh, along with a stress leave from work. 

Admitting that I have an addiction was a turning point, but I’ve learned, and am still learning, that recovery is so much more than abstinence. There’s a whole pattern of responses that I’ve adopted over the course of my life that need to be re-examined and changed if I want to live a recovered life.

I now eat my own way. It's not exactly keto, paleo, whole 30 - it doesn't follow all the 'rules' of those plans. I eat in a way that works for me. I'm still designing what that looks like, and it may change over time.