Walk the Walk

A STORY OF RECOVERY FROM FOOD ADDICTION

Walk the Walk

Recovery

I had been leading a very active lifestyle, which included helping with my disabled grandson, who is in a wheelchair. […]

I had been leading a very active lifestyle, which included helping with my disabled grandson, who is in a wheelchair. Then, ten years ago, I was diagnosed with arthritis in the feet. It appeared like gout, with excessive ankle swelling. At the time, I was approximately 160 pounds on a 5′ 3″ frame.

I became a beached whale, a couch potato. It was extremely challenging for me to walk, but somehow I managed to complete my last five years of work before my planned retirement.

It didn’t take too long before I reached 208 pounds. My eating habits didn’t change, only my life style. Physically, I was very limited. My husband did most of the grocery shopping, and I was unable to go anywhere in the evening because my ankles would always swell up by 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. I tried different weight-reduction plans, and at one time, I lost a great deal of weight, only to put it back on a year later.

In the midst of my frustration and pain, I came down with what I thought was the flu. It turned out that I had pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital, where I ended up discussing my weight challenges with the R.N. She shared information about FA with me; she had lost 82 pounds in the program. I wanted to know more about it, and she said that she would bring me written material at the end of her shift.

Two months later, I joined FA and found a wonderful sponsor at my first meeting. I learned that I am a food addict. This was truly a revelation to my psyche, but none-the-less the truth. I now eat very wholesome foods for each meal and work the tools of Program. What I initially thought was an impossible process turned out to be my lifeline and path to personal pleasure.

Four-and-a-half months later, I was 43 pounds lighter, and a miracle happened for me. I found that I could walk as long and as far as any normal person. Although I still had arthritis in both feet, I had no more swelling of the ankles.

I will be 72 years young this year and truly have a new lease on life. I have come down two sizes and am looking forward to reaching whatever my goal weight might be. Best of all, I can hardly wait to see what I look like next year. I am now leading a normal walking life without pain. Thank you God.

More Stories

Molding A New Me

I never in a million years thought that I would be walking through so many changes in my life. I never thought that I would be relieved of the 130 pounds that were keeping me from living life. Above all, I never thought that I’d be writing about it more than three-and-a-half years later, still standing, and still thin. Before I “came to” in FA, I was a walking zombie. I was living all of the clichés that one hears prior to joining Program. I was living to eat. I would pray that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning,

Security Checkpoint

I reached my 90 days of abstinence on November 29, 2012. I did travel a bit in my first 90 days. This was probably not the best idea in those super fragile, early days, but my husband and I were traveling back to Boston from London, where we visited our daughter and her fiancé. By this point in Program, I’d successfully flown several times with my weighed and measured meals and I thought I’d had this thing nailed down. I was mostly concerned about the five extra hours I was adding to my day. How does that work? With my sponsor’s

Grandpa Gains From Losing

“Grandpa, you are fat!” my then-five year old granddaughter told me. “I know,” was my reply. A week later, she told me again. It hurt, and I asked her not to say that again, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Her grandmother, my wife for over 30 years, had never been quite that blunt with me, but she had told me at different times that I needed to cut back on my eating, and so had my skinny doctor. “Shoot for a pound a week” he would say; “two-hundred-fifty calories in less food, 250 calories in