Lorraine’s story
Lorraine tells her story of a lifetime’s struggle with food and weight issues and how she found a peaceful resolution as she approached a key crossroads in her own life.
‘I have fought weight problems all my life, coming from a family where borderline eating disorders were the norm and eating, or not eating, was a way of taking control in a rather unhappy household.’
‘Despite a happy marriage and having raised two wonderful, now adult, children, my problems reared their ugly head again – big time.
A crossroads in my life…
‘I felt I was fat and at 58 years of age, at a crossroads in my life – what was to become of this overweight and therefore unattractive woman now, whose children needed her less?
‘On top of all that, I was also experiencing difficulties in having my widowed mother living nearby in a residential care home, from where she would still exercise an emotional power over both me and my younger sister.
‘I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life at over 16 stone (224+ lb/102+ kg). I had it in my mind that I wanted to travel with my husband to Israel to celebrate my 60th birthday. The reason I wanted to be slimmer for the trip was that I had strong recollections of all the times I had gone there as a single, and more attractive (as I thought), young woman.
Visiting Israel…
‘The last time I had visited had been in June 1985, on my own for work. At that time I had been married for only about 10 months. I now wanted to go back there as that same woman, albeit much older, more experienced, with a husband and grown children, but not looking completely unrecognisable from the outside.
‘I was not expecting to see anyone that I’d known back then, but it was just something I had in my mind. I wanted to feel proud of myself, and losing weight was going to be the tangible proof of that.
‘I’ve dabbled with different forms of therapy for over the past 25 years, but hadn’t found anything remotely effective for more than 20 years.
‘By lucky chance I came across this programme on the internet and booked several one-to-one sessions. I have to tell you the location of these sessions was literally miles away from me, right across town, so not the easiest of journeys, but as it turned out, so, so worth the effort!
Learned so much about myself…
‘I’ve learnt so much about myself and my triggers to emotional eating. I’ve come to understand and recognise my catastrophic thinking, something I had become very good at with years of diligent practice.
‘My default setting when faced with challenging changes, or what I catastrophically perceived to be challenging changes, was for my subconscious to attempt to pre-occupy me with more benign thoughts, and for me these often centred around food, or sometimes around domestic arrangements or decisions.
‘It’s a sort of side-ways strategy I had unconsciously developed to avoid having to deal with real issues that were bothering me. I could fool myself that I wasn’t feeling anxious at all by focusing on, and over-thinking, the small stuff, and just eat and eat instead.
Let go of old coping strategies…
‘My resistance to letting go of my old coping strategies has been a challenge. The old, old question, “Who would I be if I wasn’t thinking about food?” or, “What would I need to address if my head wasn’t full of all this over-thinking?” kept me stuck for a long time and can still be my knee-jerk response when faced with big, unwelcome changes in my life.
‘Nowadays though, I recognise them for what they are – just old fears and patterns of behaviour. In the past, I would have plummeted into a spiral of binge eating or secret eating and that doesn’t happen now. I recognise when something is out of kilter and I can gently explore what is going on in my life and reassure myself in ways that do not involve soothing myself with food.
‘PSTEC and EFT worked really well for me as methods of collapsing and resolving my emotional drivers to overeating. Both techniques seem really weird but they help – a lot.
‘I gained insights about myself so that when I am triggered by changes in my life and plunged into my default anxiety response of obsessing about food, I can choose other, more productive and certainly less fattening responses instead.
Acknowledge all of the changes…
‘I learnt to acknowledge all of the changes I had already faced and dealt with in my life – in fact, just being able to acknowledge to myself that life is perpetually changing and never static, has been strangely comforting.
‘I had never given myself credit for all that I had achieved with my life, and with my family, and although I’m not a natural at patting myself on my back, or even properly listening when people compliment me, I do get it now that I am a very capable, good person, who really does try to do her best. I’m kinder to myself for sure, which feels revolutionary and a huge relief.
‘By the time my 60th birthday rolled around I had, indeed, achieved my weight-loss goal and had lost five stone seven pounds (77 lb/35 kg). I felt absolutely marvellous and it was a truly memorable holiday.
‘Now, some two years later, I can say I even lost a little more weight at one stage and have since put a little back on. My weight-loss nowadays is stable at just under the five stone mark (70 lb/32 kg) and has been for a long time. I would like to lose a little more, but it doesn’t have the same urgency that it used to have.
Not going back to those old days…
‘All I do know is that I am not going back to those old days of carrying all that extra weight. I feel liberated from the bingeing that had so taken over my life, and I now have the time and the emotional energy to think and do other things with my life.
‘For me, it has not been about a “one-off cure”. It has been about equipping myself with the right tools, together with learning to trust in myself that I am enough and I can deal with anything life throws at me. That doesn’t mean I might like all the changes that happen, or that they don’t feel like challenges, but I feel more able to deal with them nowadays and for that I am very grateful.
