Today I want to talk about what it takes to live life at full throttle – to be empowered to live your life differently if there is something holding you back from living the life you crave.
I’m a story teller. But there was one story I never told: my forty-six year-long saga of battling bulimia – of bingeing and purging daily. Until, that is, I published my book: The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman.
The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman is a blow by blow account of what it feels like to harbor a shameful secret. And have your heart, hands and head controlled by urges you are powerless to suppress.
My lover ED – as in Eating Disorder – occupied the sum total of my body parts.
What was life with ED like? A bowl of caramels sitting innocently on a coffee table unhinged me. Food buffets unleashed my monstrous compulsion to devour everything in sight. And violent nightly purging relieved me of all those unwanted, repulsive calories doomed to pack on the pounds.
ED and I were passionately in love for 46 years – until I realized I had two distinct choices: eject ED’s power or die in a pool of my own vomit. It was a tough choice.
Shedding my secret life with ED opened the floodgates – prompting others to come forward.
Dear Iris,
I am a 46 year-old bulimic woman who has been struggling with ED since Iwas 17! I am a professional, I am a wife and I am a mother and yet I cannot seem to beat this dreaded curse. You have no idea how brilliant your book is and what a comfort it was for me to read it…Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope after all…
Dear Iris,
Though this is the first you’ve heard my voice, yours has been echoed into my heart for some time now as my hilarious sister, my loving mother, my chummiest friend, and my most patient teacher. I am 36 years old, a happy wife, a mother of 4 wildly beautiful children, and thanks to YOU, in a slow, but slugging & sweet recovery from 9 years of bulimia. My husband, Luke, discovered your book …and it was through it that I both latched onto professional help that I could not do without AND unearthed my hobby, passion, & brilliant talent in the art of puttering. This is my thank you for your encouraging, challenging, & changing me…
Belong to a book club? Want a provocative book that tackles the tough issues of an addiction? The harrowing paralysis of harboring a secret? The fear of revealing that secret to your kids husband and your mother? The longing to break free of the incessant urge to binge and purge nightly? To begin to use food as fuel for your body, not your soul? To control your own remote?
Email me at irisruthpastor@gmail.com for further details on how The Secret Life of a Weight Obsessed Woman can be your book club’s next choice.
In the meantime, keep Preserving Your Bloom,
Irris Ruth Pastor