Shaindy Fried, 27 years old, 5'3", 160 pounds. Those numbers said everything you needed to know about me

As told to Lori Holzman Schwartz

I

held the needle to my upper arm and closed my eyes. “May it be Your Will, Hashem, that this activity bring healing to me, for You are the true Healer. And please let me find my zivug soon.” I took a deep breath, and then quickly pushed down on the needle. I held the dose button and slowly counted to six, per the instructions. A burst of pain, a drop of blood pooling on the skin, and it was over. Until tomorrow when I would go through it all over again.

I’m Shaindy Fried*, 27 years old, 5ˇ3ˇˇ, 160 pounds. The real Shaindy Fried was so much more than those numbers. I was smart. I was pretty. I was a great friend. I had a good education. A lucrative job. I loved traveling and meeting new people. But those numbers defined me — at this stage in my life, it was all anyone needed to know about me.

The very first time I realized I was overweight I was nine years old at the pediatrician’s office. As I stepped on the scale, the doctor turned to my mother and said, “What are you feeding her?” It sounded as if she were talking about an animal in the zoo. That insensitive comment stayed with me my whole life. My parents had never mentioned my weight to me, and I had a lot of friends at school; no one had ever said a mean word to me about my size.

After that appointment, my mother tried to replace the snacks in our house with fruits and vegetables, but I always managed to find the good stuff, whether at friends’ houses or at my Bubby and Zeidy who lived down the block. Bubby and Zeidy told me I was just perfect. In their view, heaving a little meat on you was good. It was being too skinny that was unhealthy.

When I got to high school, my weight caught up with me. It’s not that I had no friends or that anyone made fun of me. But body image is a significant part of a girl’s teenagehood, and I wanted to look good in all the styles my friends wore. Plus, salads and other healthy foods are trendy for a high school girl’s lunch.

I tried a bunch of diets — low-carb, keto, calorie counting, juicing, but nothing stuck. I’d lose weight initially, but eventually I’d get too hungry and gain it all back. And seminary was a lost cause, weight-wise. I grew tremendously from my year in Israel — in both ruchniyus and gashmiyus. With all the schnitzel, oily pastas, and pastries alongside very few fruits and vegetables, I gained 12 pounds in that one year.

When I got home from seminary, I did three things simultaneously: I started college, joined a weight-loss group, and started meeting with shadchanim. I felt ready to find my zivug, but the shadchanim all looked me up and down with a sigh, and said, “It would really help if you lost thirty pounds.”

Thanks, that’s a big help, I’d think sarcastically.

But no matter what I tried, I couldn’t lose weight.

In the meantime — by which I mean while I waited for the pounds to fall off so I could finally get normal dates and live a happily married life — I studied accountancy. During the summer after my junior year I interned at a top accounting firm. They offered me a job, and after passing tests and gaining the experience hours, I became a certified public accountant and eventually an auditor. At work, I was a confident, respected professional. But in my community, I was a nebach: an overweight older single with no prospects for months.

That’s not to say I had no life outside of work. I had other single friends and we traveled together, went to shiurim, went out to eat, and enjoyed our lives. But always with this niggling sense that we were not where we were “supposed” to be. It was like I could never be happy. I knew that big things awaited me around the bend; if only I could lose weight I would be happy.