At 65 I feel better than ever. I stopped weighing myself, eat healthier, and do exercises that feel good.
Alison Weihe hasn’t weighed herself in seven years and feels better at 65 than ever before.
As early as the age of 8, I used food as comfort. My siblings were all very sporty and successful in every endeavor. I, on the other hand, was shy, loved reading and animals, and was deeply reflective.
I wanted to be invisible.
At the same time, my dad was struggling with severe bipolar disorder and would often threaten to drive off of a nearby mountain.
To cope, I ate my anguish.
I started dieting at 25
As I aged, it got worse. I was a plump, complex, introverted, spotty-faced teen and felt like such a disappointment to my family of high achievers.
Food numbed everything.
But I felt full of shame. My weight was up and down, depending on how much I was binging. I was starting to experience what I can only describe as a disassociation with my body.
At 25, I started an extreme diet, meticulously measuring my intake of calories. I got thin for the first time in my life. I felt accepted by my family.
On the outside, I looked great. But on the inside, I was tied to a scale.
I could not sustain the extreme eating, so I turned to throwing up the “forbidden food,” so my obsession turned into bulimia. Binging and then purging became my new normal.
My weight would go on to yo-yo for decades. Sometimes, I start to think like an anorexic, obsessing about every morsel of food and how to avoid it. Other times, bulimia. I remember taking laxatives to get my weight down. Willing the scale to drop.
It was a way of taking control of everything that felt out of control.
I started working out
The disordered eating took over my life for nearly five decades. On the outside, I looked so together, winning awards as an entrepreneur.
At 52, when I was an entrepreneur in manufacturing and construction, our company fell apart. Along with it, I fell apart. I had reached rock bottom inside and outside of business.
I recall looking in the mirror and thinking that things had to change. I had to change.
Since I had never been one to exercise, I decided it would be a good first step, so I signed up with a personal trainer. I knew I could not do it alone. Following that, I joined a running club and started Pilates and swimming.
Exercise became my desperate mechanism to keep my weight under control. If I exercised a lot, I could eat what I wanted and not balloon up.
It was still a matter of being in control.
But slowly, over the years, as I ate enough, moved my body, and stayed at a consistent weight, I started to appreciate and love my body more. It wasn’t overnight. And it wasn’t necessarily one turning point.
I stopped weighing myself
At 58, I decided to ditch my weighing scales. I stopped checking how much I weighed and started living my life. Now, the only scale we have in our home is the one for the luggage.
Eating became intuitive. I often eat very healthy, nutritious foods that make me feel good. But it wasn’t a diet like I had been used to. It’s a way of living that gives me energy.
Exercise became gentler, with movements that weren’t as intense as running half-marathons. As I listened to my body, I could feel it start to change shape from a pear to an inverted triangle.
The longer I didn’t weigh myself, the safer I felt. Every year, I have felt even better about who I am as a whole — body and soul.
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Now, I see my body as the canvas of my life for carrying me through each day. I’m neither obsessed with it nor disassociated from it.
I’ve been told I look younger now than I did at 50.
I never again want to live in the anguish of a scale. I lead a dietless life, fuelled by healthy living, and am no longer defined by a number.
