I organized computer files this week and found this random chart that I'd forgotten about years ago. It plots the progress—and lack thereof—the year I lost 100 pounds.
In 2008, when I began the Transformation Art Exhibit, I set out to discover what eating whole plant food nutrition would do to my body. For the first time since age six, I focused on the plethora of colorful, high-nutrient foods I could eat. For the first time in my life, I didn't have to count calories or weigh and measure food—I could just focus on eating—instead of NOT eating. I documented the journey and published the changing images every month.
Interestingly, the chart reveals two months that I barely lost any weight—October and December of that year. I only lost two pounds each of those months; yet I still lost a total of 100 pounds that year.
Thanks to the current social media climate, I feel uncomfortable even showing this chart. . .it feels like a socially unacceptable crime or something.
I quickly found out when I launched my book that "obesity" was a derogatory word. One of my social media platforms rejected even allowing me to display the cover of it because of that said word!
The premise for my art exhibition in the summer of 2008 was using my then obese body as a point of departure to see what food would do to my body as an artistic medium. . . just as a painter uses paint, a sculptor uses metal, or a potter uses clay.
Just writing "I am free now" feels like a politically incorrect statement; like I'm body shaming someone by writing those words.
As a society, how did we get to this point?
Back in 2008, I celebrated each victory. Each day I felt better and more alive.
I celebrated my blood pressure lowering. I celebrated my high cholesterol and diabetes disappearing. I celebrated walking without shortness of breath.
I celebrated having energy for the first time in years. I celebrated riding a bike for the first time in years too.
I was a hostage set free. . . what was there NOT to celebrate?!
In July 2008, at age 47, I had dangerously high blood pressure, high cholesterol, prediabetes, shortness of breath—basically sitting on a ticking bomb for a heart attack or stroke.
My maternal grandmother had a stroke and languished in a coma for two years before she died. My mom gave birth to me just a month later, so I grew up hearing the horror stories of the aftermath of a stroke. Then, my mom suffered a stroke years later, and I was the one helplessly comforting her in a triage room of the emergency department. It was a horrible and traumatic experience as she silently cried out in sheer terror, because she had suddenly become paralyzed and couldn't speak or swallow.
I was also in the coronary ICU shortly after my dad woke up from sedation for heart bypass surgery. He couldn't speak due to a tube inserted down his throat; relying on a ventilator to breathe for him.. I asked him to blink if he could hear me. I witnessed his eyelashes nod, "Yes."
I was with him when he had the heart attack; suffocating in the fear and pain that gripped him. I was with him when the cardiologist explained the four blockages and forthcoming surgery—which added yet another layer of fear.
I was with my eleven-year-old son when a nurse taught us how to give him his first injection of insulin. I heard his question, "How long will I have to get shots?". . .and the nurse's reply, "Until there's a cure." I saw the light drain from his face in that moment and never return. Ten years later, I wailed at his grave when his remains were lowered into the dark hole. I am determined never to spend even one penny on myself for diabetes or its nasty complications.
And by God's grace enabling me, I won’t spend one penny.
If you are struggling, especially this month of holiday temptations, don’t throw in the towel and quit. You may not make leaps and bounds of progress right now—I only lost two pounds the entire month of December 2008—yet, I lost a total of 100 pounds in one year.
Living in freedom from food addiction and getting your health back is like winning the lottery; only better!
Don't give up!
You can do this by the power of God that is able to strengthen you!
Keep going!
I'm cheering for you!
A photographer took the following pictures at the closing of my year of transformation in 2009.
Food truly is an artistic medium.
Emily Boller, artist, mother, and author of Starved to Obesity, lost 100 pounds more than twelve years ago by eating an abundance of high-nutrient, plant-rich food. Today, she’s certified in whole plant food nutrition from the Nutritarian Education Institute. She’s on a mission to combine practical, no-nonsense and cost-effective tips—with easy to understand science—in order to help anyone escape the addictive grip of the Standard American Diet.