I have tried to lose weight for the past forty years, but I never stayed on any diet plan for long, and I always regained what I had lost. I tried Weight Watchers three times, a nutritionist, a psychotherapist, Diet Center, a doctor-supervised, liquid-protein diet (three times), Jenny Craig, Weight Loss Center, and my own plans. I followed various diet books by diet gurus, and TV-hyped programs, and went to a hypnotist and a weight-loss specialist. I fell for it all!

I’ve been through bouts of depression over being overweight, wishing that I would die because of the pain in my back, legs, and hips. I was taking medication for blood pressure, pain, my heart, indigestion, diabetes, and allergies and was sleeping with a CPAP machine nightly. I was killing myself by eating uncontrollably and would pray at night for God to let me die in my sleep because I was too afraid to do anything to cause my own demise. How ironic was that? I was doing just that by eating.

One day my niece told me about a woman from her church who had lost a lot of weight in FA. I went online and found a meeting for the next night, which happened to be New Year’s Eve. My New Year’s resolution was to lose weight, yet again.

I went to the meeting with my sister. I weighed 328 pounds (not my top weight). To my surprise, I was the biggest one there. I thought maybe I had gotten the date wrong. The meeting was held in a chapel room, so I thought it might be a bible-study group. The people were friendly and welcoming, and I asked if this was the FA meeting. “Oh yes, you’re in the right place,” said a woman who appeared to me to wear about a size 2, and I wondered what she was doing here.

During the meeting, different people got up to read portions of a notebook binder. At one point in the reading it said, “You will be amazed before you are halfway through.” I thought that if I could lose 60 to 70 pounds, I would be amazed.

The person who led the meeting told her story; she had lost 80 pounds and had kept it off for more than six years. I was certainly amazed at that. At the break, a woman came to me and asked what I thought. I told her that FA sounded like something I could do. She asked me why I wanted to lose weight, and I said that I wanted to feel better, walk better, breath better, and that I wanted to live. She asked, “Do you believe that a Higher Power can help you through anything?” I answered, “Sometimes I wonder.” She said that if I stuck to this plan, I wouldn’t wonder, but I would lose the weight and be amazed. She suggested I attend a few more meetings before I decided. With watery eyes, I told her that I didn’t need to wait because I knew that this was what I needed.

Before I left the meeting, a temporary sponsor gave me the list of foods to eat and the measurements for them. She told me to get a digital scale that night so that I could start in the morning. She also told me the other things I needed to do to stay abstinent.

When I left, I felt that this was something that I could do. I searched four stores that night before finding one that had a digital scale, so that I could start the Program in the morning—not a diet, but a way of living.

At first I couldn’t get down on my knees and get back up on my own, so that was the most difficult thing that I had to do. After one month of abstinent eating, I was taken off of my diabetes medication. Two months after abstinent eating, I was taken off of one heart medication. Three months after abstinent eating, I was taken off of two of the four blood pressure medications.

I am now six months into my program, have lost more than sixty pounds, and the scale is still going down. I’m keeping my New Year’s resolution for the first time. I still have a ways to go, but I have my Higher Power to guide me.