Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I saw this quote and it made me feel better about my weight loss failures.

It reads:

Three failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice.

• Minna Thomas Antrim

I’ve been really beating myself up lately about the fact that it took me TEN years to get my butt to Overeater’s Anonymous. I heard about it, dismissed it and then suffered for ten more years. During that time, I failed at Weight Watchers two more times.

So I have failed thrice, which means, if Minna Thomas Antrim is to be believed, that I have uncommon strength.

I have to admit that it DID take strength to pick myself up again and try again, especially when I felt so defeated and lost. Back in October of last year, I lost ALL hope. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was powerless over food. I was going to be hungry ALL the time for the rest of my life. My only hope was to white-knuckle it between my feedings. I talked about it here:

• Starling Fitness – Refeeding: A Treatment for Obesity?

Back then, I said:

After months of not being able to follow my plan for more than an hour each morning, I finally have a tiny modicum of success. It appears that refeeding works for anorexics and binge eaters alike.

It is over a year later, and I STILL have those alarms that go off every two and a half hours. Without questioning it, I eat when they go off and DON’T eat between times. I can ALWAYS wait a couple of hours to eat when I feel hungry. After so much failure, finding something that works is a precious jewel that I have clung to it in near desperation.

I am so grateful I was able to pick myself up and try again, even though I had failed thrice.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.