Part 3

It Was Food vs. Me ... and I Won
by Nancy Goodman

(Page 3 of 3)

Now that I'm living on the "outside," I have some answers to those questions. Breaking out is hard. Very hard. But living inside is harder. Living inside is full of diets, magazines, books, scales, articles, mirrors, and sizes. It's waiting for food, avoiding food, trying to cut something out. Living inside is searching for the answers. Maybe more protein, more exercise, cut out the bread and starches. Drink all liquids, fast for three days, find the latest herbs. Eat small portions, eat one meal a day, and never eat after six o'clock. Drink more water, avoid all sugar, and don't mix food groups together. Get a two-hundred-dollar enema; you'll lose three pounds in one day. And let's not forget surgery and the latest remedies for fat. Staple it, stretch it, or suck it all out. Ask about a prescription; it's so much less invasive. Inside is endless. Inside never works long-term. Successes are pounded down. Inside, too much self-esteem comes from one place. That place is thin and it's never thin enough.

Living on the outside, however, gathers all of that misdirected energy and focus, and shoots it into life. It goes to us. To who we are, what we really feel, what we really want, and what we would choose if we gave ourselves that choice. To accepting, finally, that our problems with weight have less to do with food and more to do with our needs. Not our need for food. Not our need to be thinner. It has to do with emotion. It has to do with life. It has to do with pain and discomfort, and how hard we must work not to feel it.

An obsession of any kind looks and feels like boundless energy put toward a task. What an obsession really is, however, is an avoided feeling, an avoided truth, or the avoidance of something that hurts. Something we don't want to face. Something we think we can't handle. We don't even know what it is. Or maybe, in fact, we do. The obsession is strong and all consuming. Doesn't it have to be? To keep us totally distracted and safe from feelings that are simply tremendous.

Remember I said that dieting felt like an iron gate? It kept me safe from eating by keeping food on the other side. In fact, it was that very obsession that kept me safe from feelings. It kept me on the other side of emotions. I wasn't even aware of them since food was all I could see.

If pain is there, and we're not sure it is, why would we want to feel that? What purpose would it serve? Why not continue to go on diets and eventually find one that works? Who's to say that isn't the answer, especially when life feels just fine? Well, let me pose some questions to you that I know you ask yourself. Questions you ask about food. Why do I always need more? Why isn't it ever enough? Why can other people eat less and be fine, but for me that just couldn't cut it?

Can you translate that to your life? What would it feel like to hear yourself say that in your life you want more? That in some relationships you may want more? Would it feel selfish and ungrateful and sound like you're complaining? Do you feel that even if you admitted it, it would be futile anyway? Since you're not even sure what you would want more of, or who you would want more with?

If you can somehow open your mind a bit, I want you to envision a gate. Not the one that keeps food away; this is a different one. This one keeps you from your own potential and the energy that you have to get there. All the things you want out of life but you could never let yourself have. Just like all the food you want but could never let yourself eat. Once you move beyond the food and through all the avoidance, you find yourself in a place, kind of like never-never land. All the things that you never believed could ever happen to you. I won't lie. Some of them are just awful. And some of them are magical, beyond any dream you have dreamed. So if obsessions are that strong, and, boy, are they ever, imagine that strength redirected. Holy smokes. Imagine that strength redirected.

Once you live outside of food you will have joy born of many places. You will also have many fears in your life, but they'll have nothing to do with food. There will be times you feel terrible frustration, but it won't be because you gained weight. Other times you'll feel terribly proud, but it won't come from losing weight. All of these feelings of pride and remorse will move from the scale to you. Physically, you'll have no complaints. But emotionally . . . well, there you'll have some gripes!

That comes only because you have already made the emotional choices necessary to live true to who you are and what you feel inside. This needs to be repeated. Your best physical self comes after you see what hides behind food and weight.

If you're tired of prison food, prison uniforms, prison rules, and prison life, start to plan your escape. You can share it with a friend or a family member or keep it all to yourself. You can start today, but you need to be ready. It won't work if you're too comfortable where you are. Of course, you're in a hurry. You'll do whatever it takes, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just cut to the chase. The skinny one. Make me thin, you say, and I'll do anything you ask.

My name is Nancy and I've lived the life you call home. I lived inside for so many years and I'm here now to help you get out. Today I eat those foods that I craved, I'm thin, and I live my life. My weight is low because extra food is no longer what makes me feel better. I had to find out what would. My weight doesn't fluctuate all that much, but my emotions could break any scale!

Like an ex-convict who finally got out, I think about the others still there. Knowing what those cells feel like, I just want to raid the prison. I want to run inside and grab everyone and be their parole officer. I want to teach them a way to live so they won't end up back in the slammer. I understand all the fears and know they can't see a way out. But I won't stop until they do. Freedom just feels too good.

My food obsessions were not a curse. It was not the one horrible problem in a perfect life. It was a quiet scream. Inside me was another me. Apart from my decisions, choices, words, routines, and daily life she was tapping. I just didn't hear her. She tapped and tapped and tapped until finally I heard her voice. Bagel Day . . . I finally took her call. A call from me to me. And now I'm calling you. I'm outside your cell, banging on those bars. I'm here to take you home.

© 2004 Viking a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Nancy Goodman is a mother and wife who overcame her lifelong obsession with food. Her story was featured on the Web site of bestselling author Caroline Myss and got an overwhelming response that led to the publication of this book. She has created a health and fitness program for children called Core Kids and speaks to many women's and health groups.