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Ve havavta, ke reacha kamocha



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Chana Miriam S




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jul 01 2019, 10:02 pm
I was asked to speak on the topic of Veahavta ke reacha Kamocha as it relates to loving one's self at the Torah mates retreat. Scroll on by, if you don't want to read about me and my weight loss/diabetes recovery. You are welcome to PM me if you have any questions, or respond here. if you want to be a Torah Mate, let me know.

Love your neighbour as yourself. Loving yourself sounds so simple. This may have been the hardest lesson I ever had to learn. Let me tell you about what my life used to be like and how it is now.

From the time I was six to the time I was 49 1/2, I did not love myself. I remember the moment my body and eating issues started. I was six years old! After that moment, I was not normal with food or my weight for another 44 years. I gained weight rapidly. I literally tried everything to get my appetite in control. From diet programmes to medical liquid meal replacement to self starvation over a prolonged period of time. Nothing worked. After many years of trying and failing I lost hope. Even when I had succeeded, I failed because I was reacting to things I was eating by having irresistible cravings to eat more. Rebound weight gains took me higher and higher. I could not spend 15 minutes without food in my mouth. I eventually stopped even trying.

What THAT looked like was five foot one and 315 pounds. I was sore all over my body. A flight of steps winded me. Getting out of bed hurt. Many joints in my body and my back hurt. My ankles hurt. I had regular migraines. More than this, the constant voices in my head- I call them the crazy committee- that shouted abuse at me for my failure. Self judgement and hate for my inability to control my gluttony was paired with my despair.

At the last torah mates retreat I attended, I huffed and puffed my way around this campus. Even the slightest exertion was painful. I also snored like crazy! My poor torah mates roomies!

On May 11/17 I was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, an eye disorder that causes blindness . My blood sugar levels were pre-diabetic so this was atypical. Generally retinopathy does not show up until the sufferer is further along in the diabetic process.

My ophthalmologist told me to keep my blood sugar low and stable. He told me it was good that I wasn’t on insulin because insulin can cause enormous blood sugar swings. Low and stable, he said. Because I would go blind, if my blood sugar was too high and unstable for my eyes to heal.

I was terrified. I had not been able to follow a diet for years. How on earth was I going to manage this? Prior to now, my biggest fear had been dropping dead. Now it was living and having a major handicap.

I did some research on blood sugar stability and made a course of action. I was fairly certain that I was going to go blind but figured I’d be an idiotic glutton if I didn’t at least try.

I started a Low-carb style protocol the next day. I was in the middle of getting my Niagara Falls pizza restaurant set up and life was crazy. Yet 48 hours after I started, I was sitting at the shabbat lunch table and experienced-for the first time in my memory, satiety.

I kept doing what I needed to do, every day, and even though running my pizza store- long days and very little sleep was insanely stressful, I kept to my food plan. 3 months later, my blood sugar had fallen by a couple of points. A few months after that, a couple more. Eventually my blood sugar returned to normal range and since I was unmedicated, technically, I am diabetes free, as long as I stick to my food plan- religiously.

I’m not going to go into great detail about the physical effects that this has had in me. So much more important to me is the mental and spiritual change that has come over me.

I don’t obsess over food any longer. I eat to satiety. The crazy committee in my head is mostly silent and when it isn’t, I have learned that I need to listen because something needs to be fixed. The crazy committee no longer speaks to me disrespectfully, calling me names. Instead, there is a feeling of disquiet that tells me that I need to tweak something.

Today, I believe that god gave me this challenge. Retinopathy was literally the best worst thing that could have happened to me. If any number of things in this situation had been different, I doubt I’d be standing here today. I think I’d be dead, or at least maimed in some way.

Retinopathy was a challenge that I thought was going to be unbeatable and yet, so quickly I found out that it was exactly the right thing for me. I accidentally cured my eating disorder and at the same time, discovered my ability to respect myself and more importantly love myself.

In general, the morals I was given and the way I was raised taught be the proper etiquette for treating other people nicely. But it could be argued that if we are commanded to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, then for many years, I was giving my neighbours a seriously compromised love. I couldn’t truly love myself. My body had been in a constantly noxious chemical state. My reaction to carbs and my body’s own insulin for all those years had dictated so many crazy behaviours.

I knew I wasn’t all bad, but I could not understand how how an out of control glutton like me could be in any way respected or truly loved. I put up with myself. I tried to accept myself as I was and love myself to the extent that I could. But to truly treat my body with the respect it deserved was something completely different.

Today, I do treat my body with respect. I believe that this opportunity was god given. However hopeless as I was, I rose to the challenge for one last fight, and what I had prayed for, my entire life, peace, was granted to me. And no doubt, my roomies here will be grateful that I no longer snore!

This change in my way of eating has impacted every single aspect of my life. I take food with me almost wherever I go, yes, but I’m also capable of sitting at a table and enjoying the company, giving my full attention to the people, not just the food.

Food has been relegated to its proper place in my life, as fuel. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my fuel, but because it doesn’t take up my whole life, I have more time for people. I’m certainly not perfect, and never will be, but I try to live my life now, showing those around me compassion and respect that I hadn’t understood until I could feel it towards

As I recovered, I had the thought that I wished someone had told me that there was this magic bullet that would kill my eating disorder and my tendency to diabetes in one fell swoop. If twenty years ago, anyone had explained to me the chemical reaction that would take place in my body when I took all the carbs out, I might have listened. So one of the things I decided as I got better was to share my experience and if I helped even one other person, it all would have been worth it.

Today, I can look out at you and tell you that it’s been worth it a lot of times over. That which I prayed for, I became. A resource for others who suffer. I put myself out in public and share my struggles and my wins. And in the process, I believe that I have practiced veahavta ke reacha kamocha every time I do so.
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applesbananas




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jul 01 2019, 11:05 pm
Wow. Very inspiring Very Happy
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debsey




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jul 02 2019, 1:35 am
Beautiful. So honest and real.
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amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Tue, Jul 02 2019, 1:43 am
Can you please elaborate on your diet plan. I'm pretty much in the same place as you were before you got your weight under control.
TIA
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cbg




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jul 02 2019, 2:15 am
Thank you for sharing
Thank you for being a great inspiration
Thank you for helping me when I needed it
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amother
Indigo


 

Post Tue, Jul 02 2019, 2:34 am
Girl, you ROCK! What an amazing article Smile
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