Alkihah Monifa, a Communications Director based in San Francisco, said she never used to be a foodie until she lost 222 pounds. She said that the only reason why she ate was to feed her addiction.
She used to eat a lot of junk food and never cared about what she ate. But unlike drug abuse where one can stop the behavior at will, it isn’t possible to stop eating. So, she instead decided to stop eating out of habit. She began with minor changes; first she stopped diet soda which was a real sacrifice to her.
She says she used to drink up to eight Diet cokes a day, although they are calorie free she never took them alone. She usually used the soda to wash down a whole bag of chips and so she gave up chips too.
She then gave up M&Ms although their bright colors were tempting.
Her peak weight was over 400 pounds. She never felt that she needed to lose weight; the realization came in small waves.
Her daughter always complained she walked too slowly. She couldn’t be with friends at amusement park since she was above the allowed weight limit.
In planes she used seat belt extenders and she remembers a case where a gate agent told her he would note it in her profile that she was supposed to be booking two seats.
Monifa says she can’t clearly tell her she gained all that weight, what she is sure of is that she gained around 15 pounds every year from age 15.
It reached a point whereby she stopped looking herself in the mirror and decided it was time to do something drastic. She considered gastric bypass as her first option after a friend lost 110 pounds. But before she could go through it she received a call that a friend had died while undergoing the surgery, she put the surgery off.
3 years ago she again considered it. She got a physician who had done 2,000 surgeries.
One day she was late for the game and passed by a drive-thru, she threw up on first bite. After the incident she completely gave up fast food. She now weighs 179 pounds.
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