My story of starvation & then salvation from 'diets'

This is part of my story of how I discovered that dieting doesn't work and what actually does.

The attached photo is a reverse before and after photo.

It's more like an after, and after that photo.

I starved myself to fit into my grad dress.

This first photo of me is after having starved myself down for grad.

The second photo is at some kind of community event soon after having gained back about 15lbs.

I still remember feeling especially not good about myself that day - ashamed to be seen having failed (apparently not that ashamed since I was still willing to get on stage and sing - but I am almost alway willing to do that…..well at least after a drink I certainly am!!).

I tried to cover up the extra pounds that day by wearing baggy jeans and a baggy t-shirt. 

I was by no means really overweight in high school, but 'pudgy' enough that I couldn't wear something form fitting because of my "pot belly" and "rolls".

I had found a dress I really liked and wanted to look my best in, especially since their would be keepsake photos…... so I started eating as little as possible. 

I always hated how I looked in photos. 

Every photo I saw of myself I thought I looked fat in it or had a double chin or "something" (honestly I still struggle with this).

I wanted those grad photos to be a keepsake I could be proud of.

When I was a teenager I felt doomed to be overweight for the rest of my life because I knew I could never stick to eating the foods that I thought would get and keep me skinny…..namely lettuce, celery and carrot sticks. 

Well starving myself worked. 

The dress fit perfectly and I felt beautiful in my pictures. 

And then as soon as the special day was over, I went back to eating my old way and of course gained back all the weight and then felt gross and fat again. 

Sigh.

My old way of eating was a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and fries. I 'ate out' every chance I could, because I didn't know how to cook. And I was a picky eater who hated meat and vegetables.

My mom used to buy those freezer pacs of frozen veggies. She would put them in a bowl, throw a dollop of margarine on top and pop them in the microwave. Since that was my experience of 'vegetables'I thought I hated vegetables too!

Basically, I liked cheese, bread, potatoes, peanut butter, apples, bananas and everything cookies, cake and dainties.

I thought I hated healthy food……but the truth is that I was underexposed to quality food choices - and to variety.

I remember the first time I tried Artisanal bread (how bread should really be), I was in heaven and in shock that it had existed all this time and I had never experienced it before.

I wondered what was in that gross mushy supposedly whole wheat bread that I grew up on? Why did it taste terrible in comparison? I went and searched it out and read the label to discover that it was full of a long list of ingredients with names that I couldn't even decipher.

I discovered that the 'brown bread' I grew up on was basically white processed bread with a bit of whole wheat added back in and mostly molasses to make it look brown. No wonder I threw the mushy squished sandwich my mom so lovingly made me in the garbage can before school (sorry mom!) and instead bought my own hot lunch at the local greasy spoon restaurant!

The point is that we just don't know what we don't know, until we know differently.

There was no way I could be healthy and maintain my ideal weight and go through puberty on cheese, bread, potatoes, peanut butter, apples and bananas and iceberg salad - with so little protein, I was primed to become a carb addict. 

The poor quality foods and almost daily dose of french fries was the perfect recipe to fuel my raging PMS - and the raging PMS drove my cravings for more 'crap' and carbs through the roof. It was a very vicious cycle.

I had no idea back then that I could heal myself of PMS and the only way I knew how to lose weight was to starve myself and do aerobics.

Of course no amount of willpower could keep me doing those things for very long and so I just yoyo dieted.

I would create my own diets - and each and every time I would bookend them with binging on both sides.

Of course I had to binge for one final last hurrah before the day I started the diet - and then I would binge after I quit the diet - but really how could I not binge? Binging is simply inevitable after calorie restricting starvation diets.

If only I had known what I know now. 

Obviously it is pretty pointless to diet when it always leads to rebound weight gain.

But I get it, sometimes you have an event coming up that is motivating you to lose weight in a hurry.

What if instead of wrecking your metabolism even more just for one 'special' day, what if you could lose the weight in time AND actually get healthier in the process?

There is only one healthy way to lose weight in a hurry and that is doing a cleanse.

If I had done a proper cleanse, I could have healed my PMS simultaneously, while exploring a plethora of new foods and expanding my palate. 

In those days though, cleansing wasn't even on my radar.

The closest I came to so called healthy eating was trying Weight Watchers (epic fail). I didn't fail to lose some weight. I failed to keep doing the program - because having to become a mathematician to formulate a meal is not sustainable.

Conventional diets like this are designed for short term results  - only the most obsessive, Type A's can keep up relating to their food 'points' for long periods to time.

I don't have time to get into how calories restriction backfires in this article, but if you want to learn more, grab my free Delish Diet e-book (it's free while I am writing it).

If you just have that last 15lbs or less to lose or you can't seem to budge those first 15lbs, you need to cleanse, to reset your body weight. 

If you are at a plateau with your weight, it is because your body needs to be relieved of one or more of the physiological weight loss blocks that I describe in my book.

The one condition that underlies most dis-ease processes in the body is inflammation - driven by stress and eating an inflammatory diet. 

By cleansing, you bring inflammation and toxicity down in your body so that your liver can safely break down your fat stores without releasing toxins and inflammatory particles back into your bloodstream - with optimal liver function and detoxification they are finally broken down and eliminated.

This is the key to getting past a stubborn plateau.

It's also key to revitalizing your health and rebooting your metabolism.

There is no fasting or starvation involved, only deep nourishment.

On a cleanse, you aren't counting calories, starving yourself, weighing your food or counting macros and there is no limit to how much food you can eat. You simply eat as much as your body desires within the framework of non inflammatory whole and natural foods.

That's all I would have had to do to fit into my grad dress without starving myself.

I could have used the deadline as an opportunity to become healthier, instead of punishing my body.

How about you? Do you have a special 'something' that you would like to lose weight for.

How about instead of dieting, you skip the self punishment and the inevitable rebound weight gain and instead use it as an opportunity to take your health to the next level in the process?

In my upcoming live webinar 'How to Use Cleansing for Permanent Weight Loss', I will explain how you can.

Click here to register to join me live or catch the replay!

oxoxSherry