VEGAN SUCCESS STORIES

Mary Anne R, San Lorenzo, CA

I have been fat ever since I can remember. When I was six or seven, my family went camping and I was walking off to play in the river.  I remember hearing my mother's voice saying, "Look at those legs, they're bulging."  My mom always thought chubby babies were cute.

Buying clothes was always a nightmare. I remember going to buy my school uniform.  I had to get the biggest one they had so that the skirt would fit around my waist. My mom would hem it so that it was the correct length.  This was first grade.

When I graduated eighth grade, I was about 170 pounds.  I was a baseball fanatic, and found that I actually weighed more than three members of the Oakland A's.  Around the time I was 10, I started various diet regimens.  These were usually family affairs, including both my dad and me.  My dad was in the Army Reserves, and always had to struggle to make the weight. Sometimes he would stuff socks into the bottoms of his boots in order to boost his height an inch so that he would be allowed to weigh more.

When I graduated high school, I was 235 pounds.  I spent my young adult life yo-yo dieting.  When I was dieting, I went vegan.  I lost weight, but I always reverted back to 3-4 meals a day at McDonald's or some other fast food place, eating non-vegan food.  Each meal, I would order two complete meals and say something like, "Oh, my husband also wants a chocolate shake."  I was ashamed that the workers might think that I was going to eat everything I ordered by myself, which I did. 

I don't know how much I ended up weighing. I stopped weighing myself when the scale read 296 pounds.  The scale only went up to 300 pounds and I was afraid I was going to break it. I know I was over 300 pounds, probably between 350 and 400 pounds.  I was miserable. I got to attend a World Festival of Youth and Students - the chance of a lifetime - meeting young people from 110 different countries.  It was fantastic, but I felt I missed a lot because I couldn't keep up.  I got winded walking more than 50 feet.  I couldn't do the bicycle tour that was part of the festival; instead I had to ride a bus.  I had to wear adult diapers because of incontinence.  I felt I was going in slow motion and the world (and life) was passing me by.

One day I was sitting on the toilet. I was so fat that I could barely wipe myself when I had a bowel movement.  I hoped I wasn't away from home when I had a bowel movement - at least at home I could always get into the bathtub to clean myself.  I had to do something.  I knew how to lose weight - after all, I had lost hundreds of pounds in my 33 years of life. 

So, I went vegan again, but I also went into therapy.  I learned that I did not know how to cope with anything without eating.  If I was happy, I ate to celebrate.  If I was bored, I ate to do something.  If I was stressed, I ate to work off nervous energy.  If I was depressed, I ate to feel better.  It seemed I ate for every reason except hunger. As a result, I didn't stop eating when I was satisfied because large amounts of fat-laden food didn't resolve my inability to experience and deal with life.  So, I learned other ways of coping.  If I was happy, I could put on music and dance.  If I was bored, I could find something else to do like reading a good book or riding my bike. If I was stressed, I could analyze the situation and figure out if there was something that I could do, and if not, let it go.  If I was depressed, I had to not be afraid to go through the pain of grief.  This was all new to me, and still is, even though I'm 42 now.  Occasionally, I still revert back to eating when faced with overwhelming grief (my father and brother have both died in the past 3 years.)  However, I don't go back to the fast food places. I confine myself to vegan junk food.  So, I do sometimes gain weight, but these times are short-lived, lasting maybe 6-8 weeks.  I now fluctuate between 140 and 160 pounds. 

My hobby now is cycling.  For each of the past three years, I've done 3-5 metric centuries (100km or 60-65 miles bicycle rides) for charity.  I know I could never have done this when I wasn't vegan. 

When I was a kid, the diets were heavy with meat - like the Atkins diet.  The diets said you could eat as much meat as desired.  I thought nothing of eating a whole chicken when I was 11 or 12 years old.  I could never fill up on meat. Then I heard Dr. Neal Barnard speak a couple of years ago.  He explained how some people are addicted to meat.  He discussed the biochemical mechanism causing this process, and he was describing me!  So, I realized that I wasn't crazy and came to learn that for myself, the animals, and the planet, being vegan is absolutely essential.