I know there’s a little voice inside your heart that is screaming to be let out…set free to experience life at its most HEALTHY, FUN AND FABULOUS!
I know you don’t want to feel tired, stuck and isolated any more.
How do I know? Because this tired, stuck and isolated person used to be me!
At twelve years old I noticed my body and quickly realized it wasn’t good enough. I didn’t look anything like the girls in the magazines and having my best friend be a tall (for twelve years old, that is), wispy blond with sparkling blue eyes didn’t help matters. My grandmother reinforced my increasing sense of self doubt by reminding me that thankfully I was funny and smart, which hopefully would get me through life. (Seeing as I surely couldn’t get through relying on my giant Jewfro and coke-bottle glasses.) I clung to the roll of the “funny, smart” girl like a life preserver. By seventeen I was class president…and a full blown anorexic. I reasoned that, if I could control my weight by only eating a head of broccoli with tomato sauce at every meal, I could control my grades…my college acceptance…my life…everything! I wish I had a picture for you, but I was so disgusted by my body that I avoided the camera for 2 years.
By college, the anorexia had taken a 180 and I added a quick 40 pounds by gorging myself on late-night ice cream and bagels drenched in honey and peanut butter. I was exercising like a mad woman, trying to stave off the inevitable weight gain that my mouth was inflicting upon me. I felt out of control…wild…like my life was being torn apart. I was drowning in a pool of self-loathing, pain, and doubt. My entire self-worth was wrapped up in what I ate.
It all came to a climax a short two years later. My negative thought patterns, self-flagellation, and poor diet rewarded me with severe digestive problems and a final diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis at the tender age of 20. My world was shattered. Not only was I stuck being the “funny, smart” girl, but now I had a butt disease! I couldn’t understand how anyone would ever think I was sexy. I trudged through diets like a steamroller.
Atkins…The Cabbage Soup Diet…Macrobiotics…Vegetarian…Vegan. They all worked…until they didn’t.
Then it happened. The life-changing, body-shocking moment that I thought would never come. I had already cut most of the junk out of my diet but was still gorging on homemade baked goods and coconut milk, agave-sweetened ice cream. In the middle of polishing off a giant apple crisp, I heard a little voice come from the base of my chest, near my heart. It said, “Um, excuse me, Jamie. I’m full. Please stop.” It was the first time I’d ever actually let my body talk to me instead of just stuffing more bread or ice cream on top of the voice. My body had finally had enough and so had I!
From there, I learned how to decode my emotional binges and food cravings by understanding their true origin. Most importantly, I finally let go of the crazy “I’m not good enough” thought pattern that had plagued my life. It was only then that I finally learned to love myself and understand how to be HEALTHY, FUN AND FABULOUS!
