How I Lost 1,000 Pounds Over 50 Years by guest Steve Taylor

Broken Pieces Three-Day Sale(3/22) an... Taking Reviews Personally? Well, Stop...

How I Lost 1,000 Pounds Over 50 Years by guest Steve Taylor

My Emotional Eating Roller Coaster

by guest author Steve Taylor

Fasten your seat belts. Here begins a sordid story of a fat boy. It’s so bad, that the only way I can even talk about it is to poke fun at it:

Ode to a fat boy playing Santa Claus

Is he really a jolly fat man

Or just supporting a cause

Is he laughing on the outside

And crying on the in

And wishing with a fervor

That he was really thin.

Oh the many diets of which he did partake

But somehow falling short of the final goal to make

Oh diet, oh diet, can’t you make me thin?

When I am fat, life is so grim

How can I expel this obsession, this compulsive overeating

Arrest my mind, body and soul, of this constant beating

One day an epiphany arose a special treasured gem

The feeling was so powerful

He knew it’s not a whim.

Maybe it was not what he was eating

But what was eating him.

HISTORY

Those last two lines tell the whole story. After being big almost my whole life, I tried Weight Watchers starting sometime in the 60s and then about fourteen more times after that. I also tried L.A. Weight Loss, South Beach, Atkins, The Zone, T-Factor , Jenny Craig, Nutrisystems, E-diets, the Grapefruit Diet, the Three Day Diet, the Mayo Clinic Diet, Medifast, the Mediterranean Diet, Sugar Busters, the Eating for Life diet, Slimfast, and… this is getting ridiculous so I will stop now.

But all of those diets and probably a few more that I left out enabled me to lose about 1000 pounds over the span of 50 years. And then, that epiphany I described in the poem came to me. I discovered that all of the diets actually do work at the time, but I always gained my weight back plus a few extra pounds.

Do you know that I was not alone? The National Institute of Health, estimates that about 98% of dieters gain their weight back. Why? Emotional eating, a method of creating powerful, pleasurable, and sensual sensations by eating food. These sensations can overpower and eradicate emotional pain, even if it is just for a little while.

Food became the enabler for me to cope with the emotional roller coaster I was on. At my lowest mental point as an overweight adult, I was in a lot of pain. I had just lost my wife of 23 years to brain cancer. Eight months later, I had triple bypass surgery after a heart attack. My business was struggling and I was having trouble financially. I was drinking too much alcohol and smoking too many cigarettes. Wallowing in self-pity, anger, and resentment, I really did not care if I lived or not. Why should I? My weight of 400-plus pounds until then had only taken its toll on my business career and social life.

It was literally killing me. At the time, I wasn’t even sure if I cared.

THE GREAT ENDING

I warned you that the story was sordid, but what I did not tell you is the story has a great ending. I am now 170 pounds lighter and in good health. I eat healthy, am keeping my weight off, and do not use alcohol or tobacco, all because I addressed my emotional eating.

First, I came to realize that my eating was out of control and that I could no longer manage it with just another diet. Second, I realized that I needed a supreme power of spiritual magnitude to help me overcome my addiction. Third, I agreed to devote 100% of my effort to making some life changes while agreeing to leave my destiny in the hands of the God of my choosing.

It required a complete surrender process, just like any addict has to face.

LETTING GO OF EMOTIONAL PAIN

Eventually, I reached the point where I was ready to let go of a lot of the pain I’d been carrying, pain that I had been silencing with food. I listed any resentments I may have been holding on to. I wrote why I was resentful and how it affected me. I also asked myself this question: Did I have any part in this conflict and if so, what? Next, I listed any fears I might have, such as fear of dying of obesity or fear of economic insecurity. The next step for any addict is to share what you have written, and talk it out with another person, hopefully someone who is a qualified, experienced counselor or clergy member.

I know, I make it sound so easy, as though I just wrote some things in a notebook and the weight came off, but it is never easy to tear into past hurts and give them a place right in front of you. But for me, only when I did this was I able to achieve and maintain a dramatic weight loss after a lifetime of suffering.

At age 61, you can do it too.

Many thanks to Steve for sharing his story with brutal honesty. Please check out his new release on Amazon My Own Weigh, available now. Please address any comment or questions to him below and thanks for reading!

BIO:

Steve Taylor overcame a lifelong weight problem to become a weight loss and wellness coach. His book, My OWN Weigh, is available at Amazon and via his website, MyOwnWeigh.com.

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