My History with Weight and Dieting

I have been battling weight since I was quite young (at age eleven my parents took me to a doctor to lose weight).  As a teen and young adult, my weight fluctuated between 125 and 150. At 150 I felt depressed and had lots of self-judgment and self-hatred. At 125 I felt wonderful, but the pounds easily and quickly came back on.

In addition to dieting, I used exercise in my quest to eliminate excess weight. As a young parent who played racquetball twice a week and constantly battled weight, I remember thinking to myself, I wonder how I’d manage my weight if I weren’t this active? Although heavy for almost my entire life, I have been very health conscious and am very grateful to be in excellent health. I like healthy eating – organic foods, lots of vegetables – yet I continued to carry excess weight.

Actively involved in 12 Step recovery for over twenty years,
I achieved tremendous spiritual and emotional growth, but no permanent weight loss. In the fall of 2009 I discovered a wellness weight loss center in Tucson and followed their food program while receiving weekly treatments to stimulate the different meridian systems in the body. I was able to drop weight and get down to 135. Hallelujah!! But I was stuck there for many months, unable to drop below this.

I describe my past binge eating disorder and then recovery – spiritual (12 Steps), emotional  (inner child work), and energetic (energy psychology techniques) in a book I recently wrote -- EATING MY HEART OUT: Confessions and Recovery of a Closet Eater, for which I am seeking an agent/publisher.

            Within the past few months I kept hearing friends and acquaintances talk about HCG, so I purchased some homeopathic HCG from an online source. For several months it sat unopened in my cupboard. I knew about HCG from my past experience and I was leery to go this route. Many, many years ago as a teenager (it was 1962 and I was 16!) I was on this protocol. At that time, I went to a doctor’s office six days a week for an injection and faithfully followed the 500-calorie a day food plan. I lost twenty-five pounds (getting down to 125) but within a few months, had regained it all. I decided to take myself back to the doctor again for another try, and this time I used my own money (I was always good at squirreling away money and I had saved quite a bit from my summer jobs and weekly babysitting).  During this second round, paid for with my own money (!), I stopped losing weight, so the doctor asked me to keep a food journal. When he saw what I was eating he said that the Italian green beans were the culprit (note: green beans are not on the protocol as we have it today, but for some reason the regular or French green beans were allowed at that time). Frustrated at following the protocol perfectly, and not understanding that even a tiny deviation can stall weight loss, I basically said, screw you, and I quit.

            Fast forward to the present. Now it is July 2010 and I have HCG in my cupboard and a desire to lose fifteen pounds. Within a few days of each other, several friends told me they were doing the HCG protocol and I had a sense it was time for me to go that route too.