I started listening the beginning of December and did great for 3 weeks or so. I wasn’t so much focused on good foods and bad, but only eating when I was hungry. I truly felt like a naturally slender person and it felt great. I have been 5 - 20 pounds overweight since maybe 12 or 13 years old and have always wanted to shed this weight and be like “everyone else”…or so I thought. Never a big fan of exercise but I’ve done Weight Watchers several times, losing about half of my “goal” weight loss and then stopping the program. I started listening again this week after a small weight gain - and more disturbing to me- being obsessed with food. Always grazing….and never listening to whether or not my body was truly hungry. Every morning I hoped to do it differently but gee, it was end of March and that still hadn’t happened. I found myself feeling very angry listening to those early podcasts - and even felt anger when I was downloading and saw THREE new podcasts about exercise. Something inside of me was very angry!

As I was listening on my way to work yesterday about a “part of me” not really wanting to be naturally slender, I dismissed it and thought “that’s not me” just as I did the first I time I heard it in December. But I tried to think about it anyway…and much to my surprise my eyes were opened!! And I am so excited I just can’t wait to tell you!

I grew up in family where weight and bodies were very important. My mother was very slender - and my father preferred her that way and my father also always had his weight under control. There were always comments and jokes about larger people. Both of my parents when in their 40’s were into jogging and staying phsycially fit. My older brothers as well were into track and field, and only dated girls who were also phsycially fit. I hate to say it but an overweight girl did not meet their standards. So here I am, child #3 and daughter #1 with a controlling mother and an alcoholic father and I begin gaining weight at age 12 or 13. And I feel somewhat…..unacceptable to my family. (No one taught me to eat differently and I’m not sure that would’ve helped regardless) I felt “shamed” by my family that I was overweight and probably was an embarassment to them. I got the message that good people were slim and exercised. If you didn’t love to exercise you were lazy. And the exercise wasn’t “activity” you enjoyed, it was for the purpose of being “good” and “disciplined”.

To continue, as I go through my teen age years with a controlling mother I struggled to be independent of her thinking and views - and I don’t think I was quite free of that struggle until I was about 30 years old. So…….if I were to lose this weight and become naturally slender, wouldn’t I become what THEY wanted - or want - me to be? Wouldn’t I be giving up my independence and sense of self that I worked so hard in therapy and groups to gain? If I became naturally slender, how would I feel when those comments about the “nicer looking body” or whatever were made? I would cringe inside at the thought of my body finally being “acceptable” to them as I want to be acceptable to myself without allowing myself to even THINK about the “standards” of others. And wouldn’t I feel I had “lost” myself? So what am I getting out of holding onto these 5 - 15 pounds?? I guess I am holding onto my sense of self by “not conforming” to my family.

Renee, this makes so much sense to me - and I hope it does to you! I know I have a lot further to go with this, but I was hoping it might help other IOWLer’s in their struggles. I wish I would’ve read something like this, it would’ve helped me so much. Feel free to use my little breakthrough story however you would like - and thank you for your work and your girft to the world!!

Mary