The Real Journey
I have officially been a member of FA for a month now, and have yet to blog about my attempts to transition from a Food Addict into a Foodie. As the adage asserts, there really is “no day like today” to begin. So, consider this my first real blog on fromfoodaddicttofoodie.blogspot.com. I’m bizarrely excited. Here is my report of my last month in the Diaspora from, well, my obsession with anything having to do with food/cooking/diet/body/eating, etc.
I entered the rooms of FA (again) on July 1st hoping to grasp some sort of stroke of insight, desperation and genius. This time around I was salivating at the prospect of really giving it an actual shot (this time). I first found FA on July 2nd of 2007. My Bat Mitzvah of my Bat Mitzvah, if you will… hoping for the self-inflicted doldrums of my life to disappear. And they did. Miraculously. For a while. But then I got in the way again. Perhaps I should go even further back into what led me to FA in the first place. My food history, a brief tale from childhood to now… in bullet point format. You’re welcome for the succinctness (I’m probably kidding… buckle up for the long and bumpy ride).
•Born at 6:43am on August 6th, 1981 weighing in at the respectable 7 lbs, 7oz. Food as I knew it was simple.
•August 6th-ish 1982, my first official bite of sugar. I went for it face-first from the start. There are some ridiculously cute (IMHO) photos to prove it.
•As a kid, I was skinny. A scrawny 7-year-old with a stone wash jean skirt that I painstakingly tried to keep from falling down with a super awesome skinny belt. Normal - food wasn’t an obsession… as far as I could tell.
•My first school over-night… 2nd grade… when I was a more “mature” 7-year-old. Another kid offered me the rest of their Jello Pudding Pop. I was told it was not okay to finish other people’s food. I took the kid’s Pudding Pop, gleefully finished it… then ate a couple more. Warning signs, I’m sure. Although at the time I’m convinced Bill Cosby lured me to eat the pops. His commercials, along with his sweaters, were indeed epic.
•4th grade… squid dissection… we made amazing calamari in a red sauce after the dissecting science for everyone in the class to eat to prove the squid wasn’t gross. I was hooked… on squid. I ate a TON of it in the classroom that day. The
addiction to eating practically anything takes hold.
•5th grade… had someone bribe me with a Whatchamacallit candy bar so I’d vote for them for school president. I took the candy bar, but did not give them my vote. Chocolate and caramel was more important… I wasn’t easily swayed by elementary lobbyists.
•More 5th grade trauma…. Other girls were getting boyfriends to prove they were popular… I wasn’t. I was sad… so I ate. Got tired after a run in PE once… the kids started calling me “Breathless” after Madonna’s fantastic Dick Tracey character. I ate to console myself. See the start of the pattern?
•Junior high… this is where the body dysmorphia begins. There are many tales of self-hatred garnering momentum through bullying from people I thought were my friends, becoming friends with the popular kids, acting in plays, getting really good at softball, receiving amazing grades, and trying to find myself in the mix.To this day, I’m still pissed about the bullying (I didn’t know this until some in depth therapy found it when I was 27). Food addiction highlights:
o On a camping trip with a perceived friend, later revealed to be a bully, I was asked why I ate so much… naively I answered it was because I was “bulking up to play softball.” Creative, and untrue. I was just eating to eat.
o During rehearsals for our school production of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” I was waiting for my scene (as Starveling), and there were some chocolate covered graham crackers… so I ate them. I was holding the wrapper, and the wind blew it away. I ran after it, picked it up and proceeded to lick the chocolate from the cellophane. People witnessed, and then started offering me the trash from their lunches for me to lick. Yep, true story.
o I discovered a way to convince everyone that I had laryngitis one week before Thanksgiving… I stayed home that entire week from school only to eat the sugar crystals from an iced tea powder my mom had bought.That’s it. I didn’t go to class JUST for sugar. I ate the whole vat of it that week, thinking no one would notice it was gone.
•High school was a total nightmare. I don’t even know where to begin. My weight climbed like insanity. By the end of 8th grade I had already and joined and quit Weight Watchers twice. I flew by 150 lbs, and was much higher. For me, I don’t know if high school was more food centric, eating centric, or weight centric… some fantastic memories include:
o To rebel against my parents I would buy food on campus EVERYDAY. I ate bearclaws like they were vitamins, downed nachos with the fake cheese, and cut class to get potato poppers at Safeway, bread and fromage d’affinois from Whole Foods, and ice cream galore from anywhere.
o Started Jenny Craig my first week of Freshman year. My memory of the OJ Simpson verdict coincides with eating beef soup from the Jenny Craig food-bank. Gross.
o My parents had hosted a friend who was homeless for a while. She had house sat for us and left one of her Cookies and Cream White Chocolate candy bars in our fridge while she was staying with us. I found it, and ate it. I literally stole food from a homeless person. The shame still haunts me to this day.
o I was too chubby to know if boys liked me at all. Ate because I was sad about this. The catch-22 of food numbing my feelings was now in full force. I went to a fancy dinner with girlfriends and to see Star Wars in the theater instead of prom.
o I would walk to class calculating in my head how much weight I needed to lose to be considered normal or pretty… I remember it being somewhere around 80 pounds… this thought consumed me… I can’t think of my locker at all without recollecting that realization about myself. Weight had taken over my mind.
o Graduated high school topping more that 230 lbs. easy.
•College and early twenties really weren’t much different than high school. Maybe it was more intense.
o At the junior college I found a core group of friends. I joined Weight Watchers again. I had lost about 25 pounds and was a proud 208 for a couple years. Still felt worthless, but better. At Weight Watchers ran into a friend that I still have today. She was obsessed with her weightloss, and was eating almost nothing. Weirdly I was inspired by her “willpower.” Today she’s about one size smaller than I am… which is probably 50 pounds more than she was at the JC (more about her later). I started my obsessive attempts to do anything to lose weight. I kept asking myself the proverbial “why.” Why was I fat and my family wasn’t? Why was I so sad? Why me? Why me? Why me? One day in a film class the light bulb went off… I had depression. That HAD to be it…. So a decade of failed therapy begins.
• In 2001 went to London for a semester. I was miserable. I ate everything in sight. I gained 40 pounds basically from being lethargic, drinking more than I ever have in my life, and eating more cheese pizza than I knew what to do with. My weight hindered me from a lot that semester. I came home about 240.
• 2002 was what I still deem as the darkest year of my life. It was my “lost year” at Chico State. I didn’t know how to really cook for myself so I ate like shit at the illustrious Whitney Hall’s cafeteria. Fried Chicken Strips and Ice Cream took over my diet. My neighbors were complete dicks, I was going through money like water… my roommate was bi-polar, deaf, and Kansan. I had grown into a needy lethal emotional twit. Not fun. I hated myself. I failed classes and myself. I went on academic probation… I thought my college life was over. My weight was around 260+. I had devastated myself.
After my downward spiral in Chico, something weird happened. I looked into myself and saw how much life-failure I had thought had transpired. I wasn’t sure what exactly had caused me to stumble so badly, but I knew something
had to change. So, I decided to take a year off even though I was deeply sidelined in all aspects. I changed my major, and started taking new classes at the JC. My grades picked way up – and I achieve my first A+ in years… probably since junior high. I found out boys liked me, even though I was bigger than I wanted to be. I actually got to dump someone – which felt both awesome and powerful… I got into Sonoma State.
During this transitional time, I was laid off for the first time and found myself at a new job working for my aunt and uncle. At their company was a woman who had lost about 90 pounds through this crazy program called FA. I didn’t want to do what she did, but it showed me that people in my real life could actually lose weight if they wanted to without expensive programs like Weight Watchers. So, I bought the South Beach Diet book. With inspiration from this woman, and the random comment from Brad Pitt that “our bodies are malleable machines” I easily lost about 70 pounds. It is one of my biggest triumphs.
Naturally through life events such as actually trying at a new university, to being unhappy at that job (immature 60-year-old office managers are not fun), some weight came back. I hit about 216 at my VERY highest…. And thenbegan the next stage in my weight-loss dieting life… I was now a Yo-Yo Dieter.
After I graduated college in 2005 I knew that I had a problem with food. I knew that the problem lied in me and I was desperate to define what it was. I had been successful on the South Beach Diet, so I attempted it again. For some reason, on my own, it just wasn’t sticking. I joined WW again and lost 25 pounds. I got down to 175 for the first time in my adult life. The lowest I was on South Beach was about 183 – and I had been very ill. I was thrilled. However, the low weight was fleeting… and as soon as I had found “success” I gained some weight back.
Finally in 2007, I was desperate… I had sustained my weight loss somewhat… and hovered at 188. I needed to find some sort of break through. My dad remembered that the program of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous existed and suggested that a 12-step program might help me with my demons. Knowing full well (and not at all ready to admit it) that my dad is often right I took his advice and went to my very first FA meeting. My life, as I know it has never been the same.
I committed fully to the program to the best of my ability at the time. I found a loving sponsor my very first meeting. She told me the tools to use and what to eat. With her guidance I lasted the 90 days required of “abstinent” eating, and lost 25 more pounds. I was a svelte 163 pounds and had found a confidence within me that I never knew had existed. I full well knew that I,
Elana Brooke Perel, was indeed a Food Addict.
My FA journey was not complete at those 90 days – but the wonder of what was “wrong with me” was. Yes, I’ve struggled in the three years since finding FA. I’ve gained back about 50 pounds since then… I’ll tell those stories in another longer than needed blog entry… but just the knowledge that I was an addict and that my “addict” brain was really the issue I needed to confront, has helped me find that I maybe needed to follow my path of self-declared failure, to see what was really true about myself.
And thus the scene has been set. Thanks for enduring this long soliloquy, and allowing me to get my journey from “Food Addict to Foodie” started.
I entered the rooms of FA (again) on July 1st hoping to grasp some sort of stroke of insight, desperation and genius. This time around I was salivating at the prospect of really giving it an actual shot (this time). I first found FA on July 2nd of 2007. My Bat Mitzvah of my Bat Mitzvah, if you will… hoping for the self-inflicted doldrums of my life to disappear. And they did. Miraculously. For a while. But then I got in the way again. Perhaps I should go even further back into what led me to FA in the first place. My food history, a brief tale from childhood to now… in bullet point format. You’re welcome for the succinctness (I’m probably kidding… buckle up for the long and bumpy ride).
•Born at 6:43am on August 6th, 1981 weighing in at the respectable 7 lbs, 7oz. Food as I knew it was simple.
•August 6th-ish 1982, my first official bite of sugar. I went for it face-first from the start. There are some ridiculously cute (IMHO) photos to prove it.
•As a kid, I was skinny. A scrawny 7-year-old with a stone wash jean skirt that I painstakingly tried to keep from falling down with a super awesome skinny belt. Normal - food wasn’t an obsession… as far as I could tell.
•My first school over-night… 2nd grade… when I was a more “mature” 7-year-old. Another kid offered me the rest of their Jello Pudding Pop. I was told it was not okay to finish other people’s food. I took the kid’s Pudding Pop, gleefully finished it… then ate a couple more. Warning signs, I’m sure. Although at the time I’m convinced Bill Cosby lured me to eat the pops. His commercials, along with his sweaters, were indeed epic.
•4th grade… squid dissection… we made amazing calamari in a red sauce after the dissecting science for everyone in the class to eat to prove the squid wasn’t gross. I was hooked… on squid. I ate a TON of it in the classroom that day. The
addiction to eating practically anything takes hold.
•5th grade… had someone bribe me with a Whatchamacallit candy bar so I’d vote for them for school president. I took the candy bar, but did not give them my vote. Chocolate and caramel was more important… I wasn’t easily swayed by elementary lobbyists.
•More 5th grade trauma…. Other girls were getting boyfriends to prove they were popular… I wasn’t. I was sad… so I ate. Got tired after a run in PE once… the kids started calling me “Breathless” after Madonna’s fantastic Dick Tracey character. I ate to console myself. See the start of the pattern?
•Junior high… this is where the body dysmorphia begins. There are many tales of self-hatred garnering momentum through bullying from people I thought were my friends, becoming friends with the popular kids, acting in plays, getting really good at softball, receiving amazing grades, and trying to find myself in the mix.To this day, I’m still pissed about the bullying (I didn’t know this until some in depth therapy found it when I was 27). Food addiction highlights:
o On a camping trip with a perceived friend, later revealed to be a bully, I was asked why I ate so much… naively I answered it was because I was “bulking up to play softball.” Creative, and untrue. I was just eating to eat.
o During rehearsals for our school production of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” I was waiting for my scene (as Starveling), and there were some chocolate covered graham crackers… so I ate them. I was holding the wrapper, and the wind blew it away. I ran after it, picked it up and proceeded to lick the chocolate from the cellophane. People witnessed, and then started offering me the trash from their lunches for me to lick. Yep, true story.
o I discovered a way to convince everyone that I had laryngitis one week before Thanksgiving… I stayed home that entire week from school only to eat the sugar crystals from an iced tea powder my mom had bought.That’s it. I didn’t go to class JUST for sugar. I ate the whole vat of it that week, thinking no one would notice it was gone.
•High school was a total nightmare. I don’t even know where to begin. My weight climbed like insanity. By the end of 8th grade I had already and joined and quit Weight Watchers twice. I flew by 150 lbs, and was much higher. For me, I don’t know if high school was more food centric, eating centric, or weight centric… some fantastic memories include:
o To rebel against my parents I would buy food on campus EVERYDAY. I ate bearclaws like they were vitamins, downed nachos with the fake cheese, and cut class to get potato poppers at Safeway, bread and fromage d’affinois from Whole Foods, and ice cream galore from anywhere.
o Started Jenny Craig my first week of Freshman year. My memory of the OJ Simpson verdict coincides with eating beef soup from the Jenny Craig food-bank. Gross.
o My parents had hosted a friend who was homeless for a while. She had house sat for us and left one of her Cookies and Cream White Chocolate candy bars in our fridge while she was staying with us. I found it, and ate it. I literally stole food from a homeless person. The shame still haunts me to this day.
o I was too chubby to know if boys liked me at all. Ate because I was sad about this. The catch-22 of food numbing my feelings was now in full force. I went to a fancy dinner with girlfriends and to see Star Wars in the theater instead of prom.
o I would walk to class calculating in my head how much weight I needed to lose to be considered normal or pretty… I remember it being somewhere around 80 pounds… this thought consumed me… I can’t think of my locker at all without recollecting that realization about myself. Weight had taken over my mind.
o Graduated high school topping more that 230 lbs. easy.
•College and early twenties really weren’t much different than high school. Maybe it was more intense.
o At the junior college I found a core group of friends. I joined Weight Watchers again. I had lost about 25 pounds and was a proud 208 for a couple years. Still felt worthless, but better. At Weight Watchers ran into a friend that I still have today. She was obsessed with her weightloss, and was eating almost nothing. Weirdly I was inspired by her “willpower.” Today she’s about one size smaller than I am… which is probably 50 pounds more than she was at the JC (more about her later). I started my obsessive attempts to do anything to lose weight. I kept asking myself the proverbial “why.” Why was I fat and my family wasn’t? Why was I so sad? Why me? Why me? Why me? One day in a film class the light bulb went off… I had depression. That HAD to be it…. So a decade of failed therapy begins.
• In 2001 went to London for a semester. I was miserable. I ate everything in sight. I gained 40 pounds basically from being lethargic, drinking more than I ever have in my life, and eating more cheese pizza than I knew what to do with. My weight hindered me from a lot that semester. I came home about 240.
• 2002 was what I still deem as the darkest year of my life. It was my “lost year” at Chico State. I didn’t know how to really cook for myself so I ate like shit at the illustrious Whitney Hall’s cafeteria. Fried Chicken Strips and Ice Cream took over my diet. My neighbors were complete dicks, I was going through money like water… my roommate was bi-polar, deaf, and Kansan. I had grown into a needy lethal emotional twit. Not fun. I hated myself. I failed classes and myself. I went on academic probation… I thought my college life was over. My weight was around 260+. I had devastated myself.
After my downward spiral in Chico, something weird happened. I looked into myself and saw how much life-failure I had thought had transpired. I wasn’t sure what exactly had caused me to stumble so badly, but I knew something
had to change. So, I decided to take a year off even though I was deeply sidelined in all aspects. I changed my major, and started taking new classes at the JC. My grades picked way up – and I achieve my first A+ in years… probably since junior high. I found out boys liked me, even though I was bigger than I wanted to be. I actually got to dump someone – which felt both awesome and powerful… I got into Sonoma State.
During this transitional time, I was laid off for the first time and found myself at a new job working for my aunt and uncle. At their company was a woman who had lost about 90 pounds through this crazy program called FA. I didn’t want to do what she did, but it showed me that people in my real life could actually lose weight if they wanted to without expensive programs like Weight Watchers. So, I bought the South Beach Diet book. With inspiration from this woman, and the random comment from Brad Pitt that “our bodies are malleable machines” I easily lost about 70 pounds. It is one of my biggest triumphs.
Naturally through life events such as actually trying at a new university, to being unhappy at that job (immature 60-year-old office managers are not fun), some weight came back. I hit about 216 at my VERY highest…. And thenbegan the next stage in my weight-loss dieting life… I was now a Yo-Yo Dieter.
After I graduated college in 2005 I knew that I had a problem with food. I knew that the problem lied in me and I was desperate to define what it was. I had been successful on the South Beach Diet, so I attempted it again. For some reason, on my own, it just wasn’t sticking. I joined WW again and lost 25 pounds. I got down to 175 for the first time in my adult life. The lowest I was on South Beach was about 183 – and I had been very ill. I was thrilled. However, the low weight was fleeting… and as soon as I had found “success” I gained some weight back.
Finally in 2007, I was desperate… I had sustained my weight loss somewhat… and hovered at 188. I needed to find some sort of break through. My dad remembered that the program of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous existed and suggested that a 12-step program might help me with my demons. Knowing full well (and not at all ready to admit it) that my dad is often right I took his advice and went to my very first FA meeting. My life, as I know it has never been the same.
I committed fully to the program to the best of my ability at the time. I found a loving sponsor my very first meeting. She told me the tools to use and what to eat. With her guidance I lasted the 90 days required of “abstinent” eating, and lost 25 more pounds. I was a svelte 163 pounds and had found a confidence within me that I never knew had existed. I full well knew that I,
Elana Brooke Perel, was indeed a Food Addict.
My FA journey was not complete at those 90 days – but the wonder of what was “wrong with me” was. Yes, I’ve struggled in the three years since finding FA. I’ve gained back about 50 pounds since then… I’ll tell those stories in another longer than needed blog entry… but just the knowledge that I was an addict and that my “addict” brain was really the issue I needed to confront, has helped me find that I maybe needed to follow my path of self-declared failure, to see what was really true about myself.
And thus the scene has been set. Thanks for enduring this long soliloquy, and allowing me to get my journey from “Food Addict to Foodie” started.
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