Seeds of Hope planted...anyone have a watering can?

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to listen to that still small voice that asked, "so what do I have to lose?" Somewhere around March 15th, I went on line and Googled "food addiction." It was that simple action, that turned out to be the first step of my journey away from hopelessness...but I did not know it at the time.

I need to rewind and talk a little bit about the weeks preceding my Google visit...

It was March 11th and I had just weighed in at Jenny Craig. I gained 8 pounds in one week. Not what I was hoping for, but also not unexpected. I had been doing Jenny Craig for about 6 months at the point. And it was not working. Now, in all fairness, the failure to lose weight was all mine. I did not follow the plan with any consistency. I did not eat my fresh fruits or vegetables, and the only food items that I ordered, and ate religiously, were the frozen desserts and the cheese puffs. In fact, I always ordered extra desserts so I could have two per day. Fourteen slices of cheesecake or chocolate cake or brownies or a combination of them all. And not surprisingly, I was usually out of desserts before the week was up.

I also supplemented my frozen entrees, by going out to lunch with my co-workers almost everyday. I would start the email chain at about 9:00 am to pick the lunch spot. Sometimes burgers and shakes and fries, or hot wings, or Mexican. And then I would get off work and hit a drive thru window or buzz the drive thru beverage hut and get a gallon of milk and a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry's. And we can't forget the Friday night bowls of Gumbo and pints of Blue Moon. My ass was expanding and my bank account was shrinking.

I was bouncing checks, taking out payday loans and choosing food over my mortgage and utilities. I am college educated. I know how to balance a check book and do simple math. Fact...if you spend more money than you earn, eventually you can't borrow your way out. Although the math was simple, there was nothing simple about my addiction. And I couldn't stop eating. I would vow that today would be my last day of eating "bad" food and that tomorrow would be the day I would take my life back. Unfortunately, tomorrow never seemed to come.

The final straw was my eight pound weight gain in one week. That did it. I decided then and there that I was through dieting. I'm fat, I've always been fat and despite all my attempts not to be, it was obvious to me that nothing would change that. I knew that I needed a miracle but I did not believe in miracles anymore.

Miracles were what God did for other people. I knew they existed because I had seen them first hand. I personally prayed for miracles and witnessed God's handiwork...in other people's lives. But He never seemed to throw any my way.

I talked tough about eating and enjoying whatever might be left of my life, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, but deep down I did not want to die.

"I am young, and full of promise," I would hear my still small voice say from deep down, buried beneath the food I swallowed. "What about a husband?" Two grilled cheese sandwiches, down the hatch. "I am beautiful, or at least I could be?" Where's that pint of Chunky Monkey? "I wonder what it would be like to not hurt all the time?" I need to refill those prescription anti-inflammatories and I wish Dr. X would quit getting so hosed up about prescribing the Vicodin...how would he like to haul around an almost 500 pound body. Then off to bed for a night of fitful, pain-filled sleep, with the oxygen concentrator and the c-pap machine humming through the night.

THEN I got walking pneumonia. Two courses of antibiotics and much sick leave used, and I was still running a fever and coughing until I saw spots dancing in front of my eyes. I had fluid building up all over my body and in my lungs. I could not breathe well at rest, let alone when I tried to move around. I could not roll from my back to my side in bed. I knew that my body was losing it's fight against me. And while a part of me wanted to continue down that path I was really afraid that I would have a health event that would NOT kill me...just put me in a nursing home in a position where I was unable to care for myself.

So I had a decision to make...fight or die. It was then that I Googled "food addiction." I came across a couple of 12 step groups that I had tried before and the meeting times were while I was at work or on a night when I had another commitment. I was not sure what to do next. I knew I was a food addict but I did not know what to do about it. And I had tried both of these programs before and I unable to achieve any lasting success.

At the same time this was going on, my former college roommate was nagging me, as she had been for months, to join Facebook. After all, I had just bought a new laptop and got broadband so I really had no more excuses. She would often tell me of former classmates that she had reconnected with. Finally, I did it. I put together a Facebook page. Almost immediately, I hooked up with a former classmate who was a few years younger than me. I remembered her from college and she was also overweight in school. BUT when I looked at her Facebook picture I could not believe my eyes...she looked like a model...thin and glamorous...what the hell had she done? I had to know.

It took me three days to get the courage to email her. Just one sentence that read something like...You look GREAT and how did you do it? And fortunately for me she shared her story and encouraged me to try her path. She gave me a time, a date and an address where I could meet other people in my area who shared my addiction and who could help me find my way out. All I had to do was go. I was hopeless and sick and desperate. Out of options and willing to do anything to stop eating.

So on a cold and snowy March morning, I found where God had been waiting for me all along...