How I Gained 100 Pounds (And You Can Too!)

So, I think it's finally time I tell you how I ended up being in the position of having so much weight to lose. I know you know the gist of what happened, but today I am going to share with you the specifics, and, if you are someone who actually needs to gain weight, you can even follow my plan and, I promise, you will be packing on the pounds in no time!

The good thing about eating snack size bars is that you
feel like you are getting more to eat with fewer calories.

Now, I know you already know that my weight gain is related to how I dealt with my ex-husband's emotional unavailability, but allow me to elaborate. By the time I kicked my ex-husband out of our house in September of 2010, I was already 40 pounds heavier than I was when I ha gotten married to him in 2004, and, for that matter, than I had ever been in my life. I had started a pattern of emotional eating, usually bingeing on sweets, often late at night. I would get up after the old ex had gone to bed, and migrate to the kitchen, whereupon I would extract the box of snack-size Weight Watchers fudge bars from the freezer, and proceed to eat the entire 12-bar box in one sitting. I would then hide the wrappers and box in the trashcan underneath other things so my ex-husband would not know about my nocturnal activities. Often I would feel ill after these eating binges, and I would always feel guilty and ashamed, but I kept doing it because eating my feelings was easier than talking about them. It was not always Weight Watchers fudge bars, but the food it was didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I was eating in a way that human beings, save for those who have been lost in the jungle starving for 43 days, are not meant to eat.

Eventually, this binge eating became a hot topic of discussion in my marriage, as my ex-husband, true to form, rather than being supportive as I tried to stop this habit, accused me of bankrupting us by eating all the food and forcing us to re-buy the items that I had unceremoniously scarfed down in a midnight feeding frenzy. In fact, his words on this exact issue were what caused me to reach my breaking point at which time I told him he had to get out of my house.

And get out he finally did, but, unfortunately, he did not take my bingeing habit with him. With him out of the house I was in what I now refer to as a "transitional" phase, meaning I had no idea what was going on and I did crazy things and made bad decisions. Now, I know we have all been through our own types of transitional phases at one time or another, but this particular transitional phase was nothing short of spectacular.

Within a week or two of getting my ex-husband out, I started doing Nutri-System to lose the 40 pounds I had put on, with the goal of becoming thin and svelte, and then running into my not yet ex-husband as often as possible to rub it in. In case you are not familiar with Nutri-System, you actually have to buy a special kind of food, and then you just eat that food and not a whole lot of other good stuff, but, if you can manage to stick to it, it works. Nutri-System was kind of hard to adhere to, plus, when I kept the breakfast muffins in my house I would just eat, like a whole week's worth in one midnight binge-fest. So, I removed all the food from my house, other than canned goods, because, bad as my bingeing habit has been at times, it has never been so bad that I would open up a can of green beans to feast on at three in the morning. I kept my food at my parents' house, and, as my parents live just down the street from me this was a pretty convenient arrangement.

Well, this little move worked, and I started losing weight on Nutri-System. It did kind of stink not being able to eat when I felt hungry, but I am not convinced I could even have identified when I felt hungry at that time, so I guess it really wasn't all that bad. I can't say I followed the Nutri-System program perfectly. There were several times when I would have a glass of wine with my Nutri-System dinner, or, sick of fat free dressing, I would use regular, full-fat honey mustard dressing on my salad. But, I lost ten pounds in about a month, so I was doing okay.

Then the bad decisions started. I reconnected with an old friend on Facebook, a friend with whom there had always been a question of what might have been. Thrilled that a man was paying attention to me, other than to simply tell me what I was doing wrong, I let myself do what all divorce experts tell you never to do, which is to get romantically involved with someone before you've had time to process your divorce. I felt considerable stress from the weight of this new relationship, which I think I knew subconsciously was a bad choice. I did not want to admit my misgivings to myself, much less to anyone else, so, of course, I turned to food and ate my feelings.

With no food in my house on which to binge, I would wake up in the middle of the night, dazed, eyes swollen and red from having cried myself to sleep, and I would have a visceral craving for sweets so strong that it felt like I would die if I didn't get some. So, I would head to my car and drive the short distance to the nearby 24-hour Dunkin Donuts where I would order a dozen donuts or a large box of Munchkins, and then eat the entire thing myself. I would feel very ill every time I did this, but would force myself to finish whatever I had ordered, though, to my credit, I never tried to throw up afterward or anything, except for the time I just threw up naturally because, let's face it, the human stomach is not meant to hold an entire large box of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins at one time.

I started making these excursions nightly, and I feared that the woman who worked overnight at the Dunkin Donuts had started to recognize me, so I took to sometimes wearing a hat with the hope that this might throw her off the trail. I also considered wearing sunglasses, but figured that would make me more, rather than less noticeable. One night, tired of donuts, I had a killer craving for a Butterfinger candy bar. I schlepped it up to the all-night gas station (safe I know) in my orange bat-print Halloween pajama pants and clashing pink t-shirt. Did I mention that my hair looked like it had been brushed with a stand mixer, and that I wasn't wearing shoes? Still, ignoring the "No shirt, no shoes, no service" rule followed by most respectable establishments, I went in to the gas station anyway. (I am proud to say I never removed my shirt.)

Being barefoot on the beach = good.
Being barefoot in the gas station = not good.

So, there I was, in mid-October, without a jacket in the chilly air, padding around barefoot in the gas station at three in the morning, wearing the world's least color-coordinated sleeping outfit, with fright wig hair and only half my mental faculties. The gas station did not have any Butterfingers, so I bought two Baby Ruth king-sized bars, went to my car, and cried because what I had really wanted was a Butterfinger. Grief will make you do strange things, as you can see, and I kept up these nightly trips for a couple of months, resulting in a weight gain of about 30 pounds during that time period. I gained more weight later, but that is a story for another time.

After a couple of months, I realized how monumentally unhealthy my behavior was, and I stopped. I haven't engaged in such behavior regularly since then, but I have had a few occasional relapses, one of which happened this past Saturday night. Stressed out, but not sure about what, I made the trip to the Dunkin Donuts where, surprisingly, my old friend from several years ago still works the overnight shift. This time I ordered the small box of Munchkins, and, though I did finish it, I also realized that I have to figure out what's bothering me so that I do not do this behavior again. My success rate with stopping relapses into nighttime excursions to Dunkin Donuts is 100%, after the initial relapse visit is over. Once I talk through or write out my feelings, I am able to put things in perspective, and to realize this is not a road I want to go down again.

I have now lost about 45 of the 100 pounds I gained in the course of my disastrous relationship and my much less disastrous divorce. I still do not keep any food in my house, which has, by this point, grown quite tiresome, but every so often I bring, say, one package of granola bars into my house overnight just to see how I do. While I am not at the point where I am ready to reintroduce all of the foods I like into my home, I can still reliably keep canned goods and pasta without eating them, and I can still say I am losing weight, which is good for both psychological and physical reasons. As I said earlier, though, my weight loss is not perfect. Often it involves picking myself back up and climbing back on the wagon after a bout of uncontrolled eating. I do not give up, though, because I know I am a work in progress, and the best and most rewarding things in life often entail hard work and many failures before we reach our goals But, if you want a quick weight gain plan, then boy do I have one for you! Just head on up to the Dunkin Donuts around 3AM nightly, order the large box of Munchkins, and if you see my old friend working the overnight shift, tell her Audrey says hello!

Weight Watchers image courtesy of http://www.weightwatchers.com/shop/categoryshowcase.aspx?pageid=1056551&navid=moreww

Barefoot image courtesy of http://breatheandsmile.org/how-to-live-a-barefoot-life/