Alison Weihe, 65, says she looks younger than she did at 50 but has absolutely no idea how much she weighs as after a lifetime of yoyo dieting, Alison made a conscious decision to stay away from the scales – and she feels healthier than ever. In her younger years, Alison struggled with anorexia, bulimia and emotional eating.
Her weight would go from 8st3lb (52kg) to 13st5lb (85kg). Now Alison has swapped her sedentary lifestyle for a more active approach, regularly going to the gym, running, swimming and doing yoga and pilates.
Alison said: “Growing up, my emotional eating was triggered by my father’s constant threats of suicide. He battled severe bipolar long before it had been named. My mother’s sadness was overwhelming. I stuffed the pain down my throat and ate away my anguish. It set in motion a pattern of extreme yo-yo dieting, 30 kilograms up and down, which later morphed into bulimia in the constant anguish of the scale.
“Being the only plump one in a very sporty and academic family, I always felt as if I never belonged, as if I had been delivered to the wrong address. I buried myself in my love of animals and books. I thought if only I was thin, I would be more lovable, more acceptable. Then I would fit in. Food became both my enemy and my secret solace.
“At my thinnest, I would flirt dangerously on the fringes of anorexia, obsessed by every morsel, and then balloon back up. Even when my weight stabilised a bit more and I had my own family, I would avoid cooking because I was so afraid of food. My low point came at 52 when we suffered a devastating internal fraud in our company. As a founder and the public face of the company, I was on my knees.
“But the fraud became my greatest gift.”
Alison decided she had to take control of her relationship with food and exercise. “From being an anxious, depressed and sedentary couch potato, and on my knees following the fraud, at 52 I started to change my life,” Alison said.
“I slunk into the gym in my baggy black tracksuit, totally intimidated by the youthful lycra-clad young woman I saw at the gym, looking so effortlessly confident. I could not even glance in the mirror. I signed up with a personal trainer. I knew I could not do it alone.
“He had done a lot of leadership work and he patiently understood as I grumbled and groaned in victim mode for an entire year. After a year, something shifted. I had lived in my head my entire life, always willing myself to accept myself, through my mind, in my mind. I had been so disassociated from my body for 50 years. So began a different journey. I joined a running club that had many walkers. I started with a 5k walk. That in itself was huge.
“A few years later I was running regular half marathons. I had become a different person and my eating started to reflect my inner journey of becoming whole.”
Alison said: “Gym led me to walking, then running, then yoga and swimming and water aerobics. Now that I am older, I love reformer pilates, weights, hiking and dancing. Scales had buried me, they had tormented me. I had to change from the inside out. I have not weighed myself for seven long years, not once.
“When I go to the doctor, which is very seldom, I ask them to write down the number on the paper and not tell me, because I no longer want to be defined by a number, but by my energy. And now my energy is ageless. At 65, I look and feel younger than I did at 52. My skin is luminous. I eat intuitively and healthily. I eat small portions. I do not binge ever.
“I eat natural food, mostly vegetarian. I seldom eat meat. I no longer need to numb myself with alcohol. But I am not obsessive. My body just craves nutritious food if I am to live in peak performance. I move. It’s part of my identity. It is who I am now.I surround myself with inspirational friends who live a life of contribution and purpose.I never count calories. I live a dietless life.
“I live in identity, the identity of a woman who finally became whole, who became strong, who became courageous, who stepped into becoming a speaker and writer so that she could inspire others that it is never too late to change your life, to step into a new identity, to be free.”
Alison’s friends and family found her transformation remarkable – and her husband even calls her his ‘second wife’ as she is so unrecognisable from her former self. She said: “In my old life I would drink cappuccinos and eat filling white rolls and emotional leftover food binging. It was as if food could not fill the hole in my soul. Or during my tormented bulimia period, I would eat a spartan diet and then binge on all the forbidden food. It numbed me, it was an addiction to blot out the world, just like cutting or alcohol.
“It was a relentless cycle of torment and anguish. Food occupied my every thought, how to avoid it and how to bury myself in it. Now I live in my body as a vessel of love, it carries me, it feeds me, it nourishes me, it moves me. I am finally free. I have never felt more alive, more whole, more luminous, more loved.
“Living without scales changed my life. Now the only scale we have in our house is the scale we use to weigh our luggage. It is the ultimate liberation of living in my body and not in my head. I never thought it was possible to live like this. I am living proof that it is never too late to change your life.
“Don’t wait sixty years to love yourself enough to live in your body and not your mind. 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.”