Shed fears and phobias as you shed weight

I’ve started a support group for people with Type 2 Diabetes who want to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. We’ve had just two meetings but already I notice how similar the experiences of others in the group have been to mine.

Even though I’ve achieved my goal weight and by every measure I am now healthy, I still sometimes eat as a way of managing my anxiety. The difference now is that now I eat nuts or more of the foods that are good for me and even if I do increase my weight because of it, I’m able to normalise in a day or two.

I’ve also noticed that I’m not alone in the way that shedding my heft has also dramatically increased my ability to manage my anxiety and phobias. My life-long fear of spiders was once so debilitating that I couldn’t even look at a photograph or worse, be near a rubber spider without freaking out.

Look, I’m not suggesting that spiders and I are now best friends but certainly the intensity with which I avoid them is diminished.

I think I’m less frightened of myself, more confident that my body won’t fail me if I need to get out the way of a spider on the rampage.

I’m also more able to tolerate discomfort – I slid while climbing down Hangklip and deeply grazed my hand and arm. It was bloody and sore but I had no option but to continue climbing and deal with it when I got home. I mention this because I know that even if I were bitten by a spider that I’d likely survive it.

As I learn more about what I’m capable of now that I’m not fat  I honour myself for breaking the cycle of using food to soothe myself and then using food again to suppress the sadness and anger I felt at having used food to soothe myself in the first place.

More than anything, Tim Noakes introduced me to the idea that I was addicted to certain foods.  It wasn’t that I was lazy, or lacking in willpower, but that all of my life I’d been given the wrong advice in terms of what to eat.

Changing the way we live is hard enough without having to also be kept on the brink of addiction.

The Type2Revolution, We Shall Overcome support group meets on Wednesday evenings between six and seven at the practice rooms of Dr Louise Spruyt, 1 Mildred Street, Kenridge, 7550. It costs R450 per month to participate. Email Type2Revolution@BrianBerkman.com to join.