Kind Lifer Zena recently shared her success story with me about how adopting a kind diet helped her to regain a positive relationship with food. Check it out:

“Almost two years ago, I spent a semester studying abroad in London far away from family, friends, and familiarity in general. As soon as I arrived, I felt incredibly lonely and without anyone to turn to, I sadly resorted to extreme dieting as a distraction. I became obsessed with tracking calories: five hundred was a good day, eight hundred acceptable and anything over a thousand, a disappointment. My diet consisted of Coke Zero, the occasional piece of fruit and sparing amounts of junk food. I kept to myself in order to maintain my diet and am sad to say I spent most of my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity laying in bed, hungry, alone and watching television specials about weight loss.

When I finally came home, I was 30 lbs lighter physically, but felt 100 lbs heavier emotionally. I knew I couldn’t continue starving myself, and I wanted to be normal again, but the neuroses I had built about food were hard to break. I would convince myself that it would be good for me to relax and eat a couple slices of pizza like a normal person, only to lose control after so much deprivation, eat the whole thing and then feel so awful afterwards, that I would force myself to throw it up. I started to hate food. Every meal felt like impending guilt on a plate.

Then my best friend told me she went vegan, a decision she attributed to your book. I rolled my eyes at first, but when she came to visit me and we spent a week cooking vegan dishes I was surprised with how light and positive I felt. I bought your book the day she left and read through it immediately.

I’m happy to say, I have been vegan ever since. It’s been one year, and I plan to celebrate by having a delicious plant-based meal with my closest friends. The Kind Diet reminded me that food is supposed to nourish us, not torture us, and that we can be mindful of what we eat without being neurotic. Avoiding animal products allowed me to divert my focus away from calories and into living a greener, healthier lifestyle. I used to weigh myself every morning first thing when I woke up, but now I take a minute to lie in bed and think about all of the yummy vegan food I’m going to eat, completely guilt-free.

I can’t imagine how I ever would have crawled out of the hole I fell into had it not been for your book. Thank you for helping me heal my broken relationship with food. It honestly opened my heart again and even my friends have noted the difference in me. I know it is all because I am living a kinder lifestyle, most importantly, with myself.”
 
I am so happy for you Zena, and thank you for sharing your story. If any of you have a success story to share, private message me, or write a note on your profile and “like” it. I may feature you on the homepage of The Kind Life!