Members Write Now: Sora Vernikoff

Welcome to the first in the WNBA-NYC’s new post series Members Write Now, where members who write can share their recent work.Every month, we’ll feature an excerpt from work by a WNBA-NYC member. If you’re interested in finding out more about how we can feature your work, check out the bottom of this post! This month, longtime WNBA member Sora Vernikoffshares from her bookEat What You Want! Stop When You Want!: A No-Diet, Weight-Loss Program.

My Story

Hi! My name is Sora Vernikoff and welcome to the land of self-stopping. Welcome to a program that will let you eat what you want, stop when you want and become forever thin and healthy all without having to diet. So before you learn why diets don’t work and how to eat and stop yourself, I want to share my own weight loss story with you.

So for me it all started in kindergarten. My mom would always send me off to school in the morning with a bag filled with candy (I especially remember those pistachio nuts) and tell me to have a good day. I also remember my breathing getting faster when my kindergarten teacher announced that it was Snack Time and passed around those wonderful chocolate chip cookies. Then, back in college, I decided that I hated myself for having a “stomach” and for being less than “perfect.” Along with my less than “perfect” decision came my commitment to tuna in water, extreme self-starvation and lots of bingeing behavior. Then about 10 years later after a series of dieting failures (where I’d lose the weight (felt great) and then would put it right back on) I decided that I didn’t want to diet anymore. I mean what was the point? I did everything that the diet told me to do and yet I always regained the weight! Well, that was the day that I asked myself, “What’s wrong with me? It can’t be the diet, not the last word in weight loss or was it?” Now around this time, I also taught the toughest kids in East New York, Brooklyn. These were kids who walked, talked and threw chairs. However, after a while I learned to manage these kids really well and what truly puzzled me was that if food didn’t walk or talk or throw chairs, why was it ruining my life and running my life?

Now, I must admit, that at the “same” time, I also had a roommate who served as a “thin” person role model. My roommate could have half a slice of rye bread and put the other half away or could have a few bites of a chocolate chip cookie and then throw the rest out. Well, I decided that I wanted “those” same choices. Why should she be able to eat and stop herself and I couldn’t? So as a result of watching my classroom “management” techniques and my naturally “thin” roommate, I had an idea… That idea was “What would happen if I could vacuum out all the extra times a day that I thought about food?”, “What else would I think about?” and “How would it change my life?” I simply wanted to stop dieting, think less about food each day, and let my weight permanently go.

Well, that was the day that I stopped dieting and began journaling all of my daily eating experiences. I was simply determined to find out why I struggled so desperately with my food-thoughts and why I was so weight loss challenged.