Kimberly Forzley

Have you ever eaten so many potato chips that it made you sick?” “And when you did, were you trying to drown out your feelings?” I did and I was eight years old. That’s when I realized that I could use food to deal with living in an incredibly dysfunction home.

My mother was an alcoholic, my father was cold and authoritarian, my older brother threatened me with violence if I didn’t do what he wanted, and to top it all off I was adopted and made to feel differently because of it. Food was my solace my friend and my escape.

When I became a teen, I was more aware of my body and how food would effect it so I discovered purging and exercising to deal with the excess calories.

Raw vegan, vegetarian, paleo and keto, check. Juice fasts, five day mimicking fasts and all of the packaged diets that promised quick weight loss…done it. Group therapy, secular and Christian counseling, OA, and EFT are some of the methods I have tried to get a handle on why I couldn’t stop stuffing my face with food even though I knew it was not healthy for me and was causing me so much emotional and spiritual turmoil.

My last ditch effort was a program that cost me thousands of dollars. It did help me resolve some emotional issues, but it didn’t touch my binge eating…in fact, it made it worse and I was crushed. A fellow student recommended Brain Over Binge and while I was intrigued with the ideas presented in the book, I needed more. I soon discovered NBA while searching Amazon. At first I thought the child like cover looked too hokey and there was no way this book would provide me with any epiphanies; but boy was I wrong.

Something clicked. The Author, Dr. Glenn Livingston, was just like me. He wasn’t some young 30 something year old that had only struggled with binge eating for a decade, but an adult who had struggled with binge eating for many decades. He got me and I swear he was reading my mail! Through his research, trials and errors, I discovered that I wasn’t broken or that there was something inherently wrong with me or that I had to resolve every single childhood emotional trauma to start healing. According to Glenn, what I had was a brain wiring issue and I had control over it the whole time, but no one told me or showed me how I could fix it. NBA showed me how to do this and I had hope…not the kind of hope that I used to get when I embarked on a new way of eating only to lose it a few weeks in. This was lasting hope. Hope that I could finally gain control over what I decided to put in my body. Hope that I could discern the thoughts between my higher and lower brain. Hope that I could decide for myself my own food plan with rules that made sense. Hope that I could achieve the body I desired and lastly hope to no longer be consumed with I was consuming.

I have since achieved my goal weight. My joints don’t feel creaky when I strength train. My skin is clear and youthful. I have control over what I choose to put in my body. I am calmer and more present for my family. I wake up without feeling hopeless or helpless and more importantly, I have lasting tools that I can access at any time.

I don’t want you to waste another moment thinking that you are destined to struggle with food and body issues for the rest of your life. There is hope and I want to share that hope with you today! You can do this!